And, just noticed this, three days without a trigger (9/11 or scouts) and I seem to be commenting at a non-depressed rate in multiple threads. Not sure if I’m actually adding anything, but I just noticed how many of the recent commments are mind.

Damn buddy. I’m sorry you had such a crappy day. I hope your wife is doing well and that your back does not get worse (and preferably, gets better).

Wife is buried in goats {…}

Is this literal?

Those of you who have been to American hand-egg games at the college or high school level will understand. Those who haven’t, I am a little bit jealous.

I would be one of those who has never heard of that cheer.

****

Lynna @628:

Oh for the day when such announcements are meaningless (obviously in the “this is just another regular relationship like millions of other people are involved in and-while love is wonderful-is not particularly newsworthy in and of itself” kind of way)
****

Pteryxx @634:

In 1993, self-made millionaire Harris Rosen adopted the neighborhood of Tangelo Park, Florida
Its 3000 residents suffered from high crime and highschool grad rate of 25%
He provided ALL families with free daycare and ALL graduating highschoolers with full ride scholarships into Florida state colleges
Today the crime rate is halved and the grad rate is 100%

FUCKING A. That is awesome!

****
I’ve known for a while now that intense, overwhelming anger causes me to cry, which is quite annoying. After reading the above from Pteryxx, I’ve realized that heartwarming stories of compassion have much the same effect. I much prefer the waterworks to begin because of something *good* happening in the world.
****

I once, for extra credit, did a Punnet’s square for all of the alleles that Mendelyev bred for in his sweet peas. I think it was 156 rows by 256 columns. I cheated and wrote a BASIC programme with lots of nested loops, hooked it up to my Bambleweenie2000 and printed it on a dot-matrix printer.

Wow. Bableweenie2000 is in the Firefox vocabulary. I’m affledarfed to the max.

Oh my gosh guys, I so busted up laughing at the cheers and the idea of a parade. XD

He’s eating great now, but still no poo. This marks 4 days. He gets a tiny kitten enema with every to every other meal. I’ll have to chant at him next feed, to encourage him.

He has also begun grooming himself. :3 Sooooo cute to see him stretch out a hind leg and nibble his ankle with his tiny front teeth. He’s also officially pointy and will get his first nail trim today so he stops killing me with paper cuts at nom time.

His intestines are probably an origama ninja. And I’ll definitely never be a hand model thanks to foster kittens clawing me when it’s feeding time. Le sigh. Next feeding in half an hour. Hope hope hope.

But a new bill before Colorado lawmakers would block rapists from exerting parental rights. Republican state Rep. Lois Landgraf, the House sponsor of the bill, is seeking to end a system whereby victims must still “face some relationship with the rapist.”

A 2010 Georgetown report on “Giving Birth to a Rapist’s Child” put the estimate of the percentage of women who carry and keep the children conceived via rape at between 32.3 percent and as high as 64 percent. And though the bill, which has already passed unanimously out of the state Senate, would not change the game for women who are still struggling through the Colorado legal system with their children; it would apply to convictions after July 1 of this year.

Sadly the law doesn’t go far enough. It doesn’t apply to women struggling with legal hassles prior to July 1, nor does it have an immediate effect (women still have to petition juvenile court)…but it does grant sexual assault victims a measure of protection from their attackers.

Tony:This is a take that I agree with on the “FWP” trope. I’ve read a few others as well, if you google “first world problems” and racist, you’re likely to find more explanations of why it’s offensive. Short answer: It implies that developing nations are filled with ignorant savages who couldn’t possibly have a problem like a foamy latte or a glitchy ipad. Same for white people problems… but anyway the author explains it better.

Okay. So. My mom moved out of this area 2 years ago. At that time, I was living in Chicago, and S was living near to where she was moving away from (my current location and S’s). A lot of my childhood stuff was boxed up at her house at that point. So she would have to move less stuff, we put it in S’s mostly empty basement. About six months ago, Mom started talking about wanting to get it out of S’s house and into my house (where I now have space, as opposed to the Chicago apartment). She said next time she visits, it was on her to-do list. (She has been helping me get my house together in steps ever since I moved in). She just mentioned today and reminded me that this is her mission for her visit…this weekend. I haven’t talked to S in like six weeks, and I don’t want to do it now. But I do want to get my stuff, and part of me wants the excuse to talk to him (to borrow opposablethumb’s phrase…Bad Brain, no Biscuit! …but at least I’m honest with myself). I’m also concerned it would trigger a lot of stuff-trading, which I don’t feel emotionally prepared for but maybe I should just get the heck over it, huh?

I’d say I’m a big fan of getting things over with, but that’d be a lie. What I’m a fan of is things actually being over, and of course for that to happen shit needs to get done. The pain I feel at making myself do those uncomfortable, stressful things is usually made up for by the sense of relief once it’s all over. But for some reason knowing that doesn’t help me get on with it. YMMV.

Portia:
Perhaps you should talk it over with your mother. While the stuff is hers, perhaps she would be willing to wait until a later point to get her stuff. Or maybe she could convince you this is the best time to do so.

Portia – if you get your stuff back, that will eliminate a tie to S, right? So I think it would be a good thing to get it back, even at the cost of temporary discomfort, so it doesn’t continue to be something you think about that is connecting you to S.

to carlie’s point, I’ll probably feel more detached from S, too, which is probably part of my reluctance.

Tony:
The stuff isn’t my mom’s it’s mine. She’s just trying to get my house organized and my stuff centralized, since I’ve been so scattered for so many years, moving around because of school and whatnot.

I’ll also point out that getting stuff back that’s been stored away for years can be like christmas come early. We moved here going on five years ago and I still occasionally find an unopened box with surprising little treasures that I forgot I had.

Mind you, this was a running gag/irritation between Ms. Fishy and I when we first moved in together. I had a huge amount of stuff, most of which stayed in the shipping boxes in the basement. Ms. Fishy would say something like “I wish I had a left-handed sporkinator.” And I’d go “I’ve got one of those!” And a few dusty and grunty minutes later I’d emerge with said item. And despite such constant domestic triumphs she still teases me in a semi-serious way about all the crap in boxes I have.

I agree with one of the commenters on Portia’s link: firstworldproblems isn’t supposed to be any old problem that any human could have. If someone is talking about their cellphone being broken, or having the flu, that’s not a first world problem. It should be specifically about problems of affluence, or ectremely trivial problems in an otherwise good life, and it’s best used as self-deprecating humour. But, y’know, the internet is good at picking up and misapplying memes.

BTW the ACL didn’t so much “forget” to renew a domain name as never purchased that one in the first place. They’re still running at acl.org.au and australianchristianlobby.org.au (unfortunately). But regardless of detail, the Australian Cat Ladies rock. Love it.

yay! Parsnip pooed, therefore spitting against israeli girls going to school requires the donation of 40 pounds of silver to feminists for comprehensive sex education, full abortion rights, an end to religious control of legal variables of secular life (such as who can drive or immigrate), and a peaceful, stable, two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that respects property rights as much as feasible without rewarding occupations created in defiance of international law.

And “Exeunt, pursued by bear” was one of our favorite jokes in the Shakespeare troupe. Maybe I should audition for a show, they’re still doing productions…

Worked in our D&D game, too, lo these manymanymany moons ago.

The bear caught up with the druid, killed him, took a big ol’ bite o’ butt-cheek, buried the rest (to save it for later), and pissed on the spot to mark it.

The druid regenerated an hour later.

He was not a happy camper.
–
–
I thought “agouti” was a fur-color description.
–
Ogvorbis, Hurrah! for 3 days trigger-free! Hurrah! for non-depressed commenting!
–
Tony @ 17:*bowing*
–

A horse is a horse off course ofcourse.

A Horse is an on-course Horse, of course….

on-course to the Equine Apocalypse, bearing as many victims as It can sucker onto Its broad back.
–
Portia: As long as your (and/or your mother’s) stuff is in S’ basement, you still have a lingering attachment.

This is no way to move on.
–
Add my wishes for a dreamless sleep for Ogvorbis.
<singing>Safe and restful sleep
Sleep
Sleep….
</singing>
–

Parsnip made a poo! It wasn’t a terribly big poo, but it was the first bit in 4 days so I’m happy dancing. I did the chants. So magic works, therefore deity or something. :P

The chanting has pleased Bast, and She has rewarded you with kitty poo.

Let us rejoice, and be glad in it!
–

It should be specifically about problems of affluence, or ectremely trivial problems in an otherwise good life, and it’s best used as self-deprecating humour.

<singing>It’s like raaaa-ii-ain
In your Chardonnay.
It’s a Black Tii-eee-iiie
And your tux is frayed.
</singing>

It should be specifically about problems of affluence, or ectremely trivial problems in an otherwise good life, and it’s best used as self-deprecating humour.

Which presumes, to insulting effect, that there’s no affluence anywhere but industrialized nations. I don’t think narrowing which jokes are appropriately within the genre makes them less insulting, though it does make sense as a nuance of the joke.

Yay Parsnip!

You’re right, cicely.
Now I guess my to-do list is “Work up nerve to call S”

Okay, so, er, I’ve written this little musical fragment and sent it to rq, who’s previously expressed an interest in a hordian musical venture. parrowing, you’re in too if you wish, it doesn’t have a vocal line exactly, but there’s nothing stopping you or anyone from adding one.

For some reason, foolish selfishness I suspect, and perhaps a little trepidation because the thing isn’t great art by any standard, I feel reluctant to just post the link here.

If anyone is interested in hearing it or hopefully (as in: pretty please! taking it and adding to it in any way, please drop me a line at coelecanth28 via the google mailinator and I’ll send you a sooper-seckret link to the sheet music. The page doesn’t require registration and you can download it as a pdf if so desired. It also has a player on it so you can hear how a robot would interpret it. (Not well, no surprise. The last 3 bars really need a bit of finesse to make musical sense, or perhaps just a better composer.)

Welp, I’m forever threadtrupt, but this has been a fun read! That little critter up yonder is adorable! It does resemble a tribble! Or an impossibly fluffy and cute gerbil or something!
Portia – good luck navigating those waters – I’m glad you’ve got your mom’s support. I hope it all goes as smoothly as possible.
rowanvt and parsnip – hip hip hooray for the little poo! More poo please, parsnip! You can doo it!
Ogvorbis, you made me laugh out loud with your worshipping the pantheon – borkquotia! :D Sleep well!
Tony! #35 thank you for that link (respite from the usual anti-woman horrorshow) – let’s hope it sticks!
fossilfishy:

Ms. Fishy would say something like “I wish I had a left-handed sporkinator.” And I’d go “I’ve got one of those!” And a few dusty and grunty minutes later I’d emerge with said item.

So the state where I live has only two health insurers that cover over 95% of the population… and we have the 3rd lowest insurance rates, with better coverage than many states (no statistic was given on that score, source HMA). Lower rates, better service through Regulation and Lack of Competition. I just found this so fascinating.

Re: FWP. I have regarded the meme as somewhat funny and never thought through the implications. My eyes have been opened.

FossilFishy, I am super impressed you can musicate. I struggle so hard to be musical. I have lots of determinations, not too much natural talent. Composing is way beyond my pay grade.

Thanks for that Ducthgirl, mind you, I’ll point out that you haven’t heard the thing, that might change your opinion. :)

The truth is, I haven’t much natural talent either. I’ve just spent the better part of the last 20 years doing things musical and some of it has rubbed off. I can guarantee you that there are folks lurking in these parts that have way more talent than I. I never even came close to making a living from music, in part because I didn’t have the drive, and in part because I don’t have the talent.

As the years have gone by I’ve become okay with my abilities and the lack thereof. I know where the fence is, beyond which lies significant mastery of music and instrument. To climb that fence would require greater dedication, effort and time than I currently possess, with no real assurance that I won’t get stuck half way up like I did before. And that’s okay. At 47 my dreams of musical fame are just that, fleeting phantasms of a deafening past. I am who and what I am, and in this at least I’m comfortable.

So for now I just want to make some small beauty in the world with folks who share most of my values. ‘Tis enough, more than enough in fact, for me.

FossilFishy, while it’s true I haven’t heard it, my personal opinion on its merit is not important. You made something and are putting it out there, are willing to listen to feedback and improve your creation. That in itself is worthy of praise.

Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaidensays

If you have access to Netflix and get stuck at home for some time, have nothing productive to do and look for an opportunity to kill time, here is a recommendation:

“Erasing Hate”

Some of you probably already know this documentary, some don’t.

It is about a violent white power thug who found love and distaste in his former life. He and his new family left the white power movement, threatened by their former friends and not accepted by the society. A key reason for non-acceptance were the tattoos he had on his face….until the southern poverty law center allocated funding for a professional tattoo removal. To help out one of their _former_ most fiercest enemies to start a new life. This documentary has the controversial story.

trailer on YouTube @ 4bkTTEGfjgI (how can I suppress embedded YouTube links to pop up BTW???)

How do you tell your children everything you taught them was wrong? How do you erase your hate?

Yay Parsnip!!!!! Come on, you can poo it!!!!!
.
Sounds like you have a very clear-sighted view of exactly what’s going on, Portia. Here’s hoping this turns out to be a convenient catalyst for tidying up a sort-of-loose-end, while at the same time turning out to be convenient on a purely practical level too. PS your mum sounds lovely. Kind of makes me miss mine …
.

yay! Parsnip pooed, therefore spitting against israeli girls going to school requires the donation of 40 pounds of silver to feminists for comprehensive sex education, full abortion rights, an end to religious control of legal variables of secular life (such as who can drive or immigrate), and a peaceful, stable, two-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict that respects property rights as much as feasible without rewarding occupations created in defiance of international law.

Came home from work early ’cause I’m sick. In the couple of hours I’ve been there I managed to make at least one mistake. I’m obviously useless when sick… at least I noticed the error and notified a colleague.

Beatrice
I blame you for my current illness. Yes, Husband probably passed it on to me (or the zombie-water did it, I don’t know), but… K, I have nothing. Nothing.
I feel miserable and you do too, so I hope you feel better soon.

FossilFishy
There is arrival of two mails, which I will get to once swallowing isn’t such a chore. Initial skim-through visually looks good, though.
Feverish brain and all. ;)
I like you a lot, have I told you that lately? Probably not, so: I like you a lot.
(Along with the rest of the people here, but I felt you needed a special shout-out. As does cicely because the last couple of her posts made me giggle all over because they were funny, so thanks for that, too, cicely. I lilke you, too.)

Argh fuck, I’m sitting here, trying to prepare an oral presentation and I have a total blockage. It’s one of those “actually I’m not interested in what you’re saying, I’m just interested in how you’re saying it” presentations and I can’t even decide on what to actually write….

Thank you for that rq, it means a lot to me. And I like you too, despite my lack of fever. :) Get well soon. and here’s hoping your inspiration survives your good health.

For the record I’m not convinced by bar 3 in what I sent. It works okay when I play it on guitar because I can accent it so that it maintains momentum. The melody which was more in the bass, borrows a treble note there. But the robot makes it sound muddled, that might mean it needs a bit of tweaking. Ah well, nothing’s set in stone.

I played the Lounge Music (Thank you parrowing for that moniker, I LOLed, and you should have mail) for The Small Fry tonight and asked her if it sounded happy or sad. She said “Sad, with just this much happy.” and held her fingers about 3cm apart. Sad but not despairing was what I was after, perfect. And of course flattery got her everywhere, she got the nod when she asked for “Just a little more chocolate.” at desert time. Hmmm, maybe she’s not the unbiased reviewer I’d hoped for…. ;)

rq
Not really. If I could pull off a Flamenco, that might be different. But in a Spanish oral expression class I probably should say something in Spanish.
Well, I finished it for now. It might be a bit scarce in text and heavy in pictures, but the idea is not to put the entire text on slides. Need to try it out tonight at home to see if it fills 15 minutes.

Offenbach’s Orpheus in the Underworld (the Minkowski production from the 1980s if I recall correctly) has been repeatedly listened to over the last few days while I’ve been sitting at the computer coding for assignments. I’m now starting to have weird delusions involving array elements dancing the Cancan when I run the sorting algorithm.

Three cheers for Parsnip. Here’s hoping there’s more where that came from.

And yes, the Tenor parts in Orpheus do seem to sit more comfortably with the… well, the Tenors.

#87&#88 Oh, I disagree! I think children simply tell the truth about something like “what do you hear in this music”. :) Anyone might give a general “Oh that was amazing!” with or without a chocolate incentive (maybe just because they love us), but Smallfry described the music – the emotions being conveyed. I believe you did get your impartial review! :) (Also, could there be musical talent in smallfry, too?)

Unemployed people are told they risk losing benefits if they fail to carry out meaningless questionnaire

Jobseekers are being made to complete bogus psychometric tests by the Department for Work and Pensions — and told that in some cases they risk losing their benefits if they do not complete the meaningless online questionnaire.

The test called My Strengths, devised by Downing Street’s behavioural insights or “nudge” unit, has been exposed by bloggers as a sham with results having no relation to the answers given.

Some of the 48 statements on the DWP test include: “I never go out of my way to visit museums,” and: “I have not created anything of beauty in the last year.” People are asked to grade their answers from “very much like me” to “very much unlike me”.

When those being tested complete the official online questionnaire, they are assigned a set of five positive “strengths” including “love of learning” and “curiosity” and “originality”.

However, those taking the supposed psychological survey have found that by clicking on the same answer repeatedly, users will get the same set of personality results as those entering a completely opposite set of answers.

An unemployed single mother … received an official DWP letter warning her that her jobseekers’ allowance of £71 a week “could be stopped for a period of time” if she did not fill out the questionnaire.

The DWP letter said the test was “scientifically shown to find people’s strengths” and instructed her that along with searching for work she must complete the online test within three days. “Failure to comply with this direction may result in loss of benefit,” it added.

…

The government’s nudge unit is attempting to implement the findings of the field of behavioural economics or “nudge” theory, which says that human behaviour can be shifted dramatically by small changes in the way people are presented with information.

The unit, which costs just over half a million to run, is championed and overseen by [Prime Minister] David Cameron himself, and its head, Dr David Halpern, is paid around £100,000 a year to run it. …

[The blogger Steve] Walker criticised the department’s use of the test. “In a context where we see regular headlines about people committing suicide out of fear of losing their benefits, it’s appalling that the DWP is threatening people with low literacy and computer skills with the loss of their income if they don’t complete a meaningless test designed to manipulate them into some kind of positive thinking,” he said.

The DWP did not comment on the validity of the test but denied that anyone would be stripped of their benefits for not completing it. …

Only little green men at National Press Club are dead presidents on $20,000 honorariums paid to committee members

If there are extraterrestrial rewards for perseverance, the organisers of the UFO conspiracy hearings that are under way at the National Press Club in Washington this week deserve a visit from space.

Five former US congressmen and one former senator have been paid $20,000 each to lend credibility to the event, which calls on the government to release supposed secret documents showing alien incursions dating back decades.

…

Not one of those who spoke during an opening session filled with around 100 delegates disputed the premise that extraterrestrial visits were being hidden from the public.

…

More than 10,000 separate UFO sightings are reported each year to two leading conspiracy websites [so what? –blf], according to one witness, Richard Dolan, who has written several books on the subject. Linda Moulton Howe, a former documentary filmmaker, said that aliens had been visiting earth “since before the dinosaurs” [evidence, please… –blf]. “We are dealing with technology so advanced that they can bend space and time,” […that you are not a loony! –blf] she said, to loud applause.

The politicians who made up the committee were given just five minutes each to cross-examine witnesses, but defended their presence and the $20,000 “honorarium”.

“I would not have come if I thought it was damaging to my reputation,” said California Democrat Lynn Woolsey, who retired from Congress this year after 10 terms in office. “I am here because I believe in transparency.” [snort! –blf]

Roscoe Bartlett, a Tea Party Republican from Maryland who served 10 terms in Congress and chaired a sub-committee of the House armed services committtee, said: “Extraterrestrials are not anti-biblical. Read the book of Job — it’s all there.”

…

Witnesses gave a variety of reasons for the persistence of the cover-up, even after the end of the Cold War. Stanton Friedman, who has two degrees in physics, said: “If there were something announced, say by the pope and the Queen, what would happen? Young people would see themselves as Terrans and would lose their allegiance to nations. No government could allow that.”

Headdesk…

I couldn’t find the Issac Asimov quote I was looking for — something about needing a crew and flying saucer in plain sight — but did find another making the same point:

“Don’t you believe in flying saucers, they ask me? Don’t you believe in telepathy? — in ancient astronauts? — in the Bermuda triangle? — in life after death?

No, I reply. No, no, no, no, and again no.

One person recently, goaded into desperation by the litany of unrelieved negation, burst out “Don’t you believe in anything?”

“Yes”, I said. “I believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I’ll believe anything, no matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid the evidence will have to be.”

And what is that nonsense about flying saucers in the holey babble (in job)? (There’s something that reads like a bad mushroom trip in ezekiel 1 that is sometimes cited as a flying saucer / ancient astronutters visit.)

Actually you’re probably right. The chocolate request and consumption was in no way tied to her music review. We’d been listening to other favs of mine on YouTube and I was already asking her about how they made her feel. Interestingly, she rated New Order’s Temptation as around 10 degrees above a horizontal thumb, thumb up being perfectly happy, thumb down being perfectly sad. Anyway desert came much later in the evening.

What she said was so in line with what I was going for that I felt compelled to make a joke about it. Between that and my reply to Dutchgirl it’s clear that I’m not doing a good job of being honest with myself tonight.

Uranium mining on the doorstep of the Grand Canyon national park is set to go ahead in 2015 despite a ban imposed last year by Barack Obama.

Energy Fuels Resources has been given federal approval to reopen its old Canyon Mine, located six miles south of the canyon’s popular South Rim entrance, that attracts nearly 5 million visitors a year.

During a “Sacred Lands Solidarity” rally outside a tribal gaming convention in downtown Phoenix on Tuesday, Navajo activist Klee Benally said the mine and its proximity to Red Butte are insults to Native American beliefs. At the rally, tribes from around the country complained of improper development, including some done by tribes themselves.

“As indigenous people in the so-called United States, we don’t have guarantees for our religious freedoms like the rest of you,” Benally said. “This is a struggle for cultural survival — the struggle to protect sacred places.”

Not covered in the ban protected by the March 20, 2013, court ruling is the question of previously approved mining and new projects on claim sites with existing rights, the Interior Department said in its statement announcing the ban last year. The Bureau of Land Management estimates that as many as 11 uranium mines could be developed under existing rights. On March 7 the Havasupai tribe and three conservation groups filed a lawsuit against the U.S. Forest Service for allowing Energy Fuels Resources Inc. to start up a uranium mine near Grand Canyon National Park, citing a lack of formal tribal consultation and the company’s failure to update the federal environmental review it had conducted in 1986.

I just wanted to direct folks to my post on what happens when paleontology meets religion. Happy Tuesday!

Uh… what is it that happens? An ammonite with a hat and a mustache? ~:-|

Witnesses gave a variety of reasons for the persistence of the cover-up, even after the end of the Cold War. Stanton Friedman, who has two degrees in physics, said: “If there were something announced, say by the pope and the Queen, what would happen? Young people would see themselves as Terrans and would lose their allegiance to nations. No government could allow that.”

:-D :-D :-D :-D :-D

What an anachronistic attitude! The countries over here haven’t expected “allegiance” in decades…

Uranium mining on the doorstep of the Grand Canyon national park is set to go ahead in 2015 despite a ban imposed last year by Barack Obama.

How does that work???

But, speaking of allegiance, I’m impressed it’s got the Navajo and the Havasupai working together.

In 1993, self-made millionaire Harris Rosen adopted the neighborhood of Tangelo Park, Florida
Its 3000 residents suffered from high crime and highschool grad rate of 25%
He provided ALL families with free daycare and ALL graduating highschoolers with full ride scholarships into Florida state colleges
Today the crime rate is halved and the grad rate is 100%

After the failure of peace talks, fizzy drink makers fear for the supply of a crucial but rare ingredient — gum arabic

In 1997, those upstanding lawmakers from the Congress of the United States of America were most unhappy with the government of Sudan, which they accused of sponsoring terrorism and persecuting religious minorities. The real problem was simple: Sudan had given refuge to Osama bin Laden, who even then was not a very popular man. As punishment, Congress passed a package of hard-hitting sanctions that severely limited Sudan’s ability to trade and stunted its economy.

Before the sanctions were passed, however, nervous lobbyists representing some of America’s biggest corporations fought to include one exception. They were successful, as well-funded lobbyists so often are, and exempted was a hard, translucent resin known as gum arabic. Sudan could export as much of it as they liked.

Gum arabic is interesting stuff. … Gum arabic is the hardened sap of specific species of Acacia tree, most of which grow in Sudan. When it’s dried out and ground into a powder it can be used as an “edibile emulsifier”, which in layman’s terms translates as glue that we can eat.

For that reason, it is often used in products such as chewing gum and certain pharmaceutical drugs. But by far its most important use is in fizzy drinks, where gum arabic plays an essential role in binding the sugar to the drink; without it, the sugar would just fall out of the solution and collect in a pile at the bottom.

Although figures are hard to come by, Sudan exports somewhere between 40% and 70% of the world’s gum arabic, most of which comes from or through the small, dusty town of El Obaid in North Kordofan province. …

It’s hard to escape the irony: from North Kordofan, a dusty, dry corner of a dysfunctional, poverty stricken country, comes the ingredient without which one of the most iconic and lucrative products in the world could not be made (or at least, not as cheaply).

This is all just a little bit of background to explain why the recent political developments in Sudan might be causing a few nervous moments for executives in companies such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, who are thought to be the largest recipients of Sudan’s gum arabic exports (neither company will reveal where they source their emulsifiers, probably because of the negative publicity that might come from being associated too closely with Sudan).

Here’s what happened this weekend: in a daring and unexpected raid, rebels from the Justice and Equality Movement stormed and captured the town of Umm Ruwaba in North Kordofan. Umm Rawaba is just 100km from El Obaid, and is itself a centre for cultivating gum arabic.

…

The attack also came just days after failed talks between the SPLM-N and the Sudanese government. “I believe that attack was timed by the rebels with the failure of the talks in Addis Ababa to send a message to the government that the rebels can expand their fighting into new areas,” a Sudanese columnist, Abd al-Latif al-Bony, told the New York Times.

It didn’t take long, however, for Sudanese troops to get themselves organised and push back against the rebels, forcing them out of Umm Rawaba by Sunday, according to reports. But not before the Sudanese government had received the rebels’ message loud and clear: the rebellion has spread to North Kordofan.

It’s a message that corporations such as Coca-Cola and Pepsi, worried about their global supply chains, will doubtless be heeding too.

Those fizzy “drinks” are so awful I thought they used peas…
…to reduce the awfulness.

We’ve fallen in love with knowledge and that’s almost exclusively a product of how you use the Internet. You hunt for novelty, relentlessly, and when that novelty doesn’t manifest as sloths cuddling with cats, it usually takes the form of information. In fact, the only reason I have a job is because the Internet loves to consume interesting, unique facts. It’s hard to argue that becoming smarter is a bad thing.

So the next time you scroll through your Facebook feed and find someone with whom you grew up screaming, “I love science!” despite that fact that you know they never went to a single science class and did nothing but complain about how boring it was in high school, think about the alternative; I’d much rather live in a world where people celebrate knowledge, even if it’s blindly, than a world where everyone dismisses as geek fuel.

Arizona cities and counties that hold community gun buyback events will have to sell the surrendered weapons instead of destroying them under a bill Gov. Jan Brewer signed into law Monday.

The bill was championed by Republicans in the GOP-controlled Legislature who argued that municipalities were skirting a 2010 law that was tightened last year and requires police to sell seized weapons to federally licensed dealers. They argued that destroying property turned over to the government is a waste of taxpayer resources.

So far, she has expressed about 15cc of a combination of blood and puss. It is an odd colour. We are currently waiting on a call-back from her doctor to see if she can fit Wife in this afternoon to drain it the rest of the way. Those 15cc are, maybe, 1/4 of what is in there. If I didn’t know better, I would swear she was getting ready to vlenn.

TRIGGER WARNING OVER

Went shopping today. Got a rally nice corned beef round which is now in the stock pot. I plan to serve it with roasted Brussels sprouts. Mmmmm.

Tonight is valpurgisnacht, six months ahead of All hallows eve.
Swedes go out and set light to stuff (hopefully just bonfires. Too bad if the fires get out of control).
Cicero has been showelling sand in the litterbox with such energy the crap was strewn across my bedroom. Good kitty!
I sent my tax forms today, ducking sporadic rain and hail.

Tomorrow is May 1st, a holiday. I have been stocking up with books of wossname, detective in the Deep South (The Tin Roof Blowdown, and othe books).

Tomorrow is also the tenth anniversary of “Mission Accomplished”, and the day the George W. Bush Presidential Library is opened for the public. They ought to play “Insane In The Membrane” for the opening. Or maybe “Gangster’s Paradise”. Hmm.
“…Soldaten boden
um die kanonen…”

Trap laws are shutting down abortion clinics in several states, thus effectively banning abortion. Some of these clinics have stayed open through decades of protests from anti-abortion activists, protests that included fire bombing, attacks with high-powered rifles firing hollow point ammo, threats to clinic workers, etc.

The Los Angeles Times reported in passing last week that “a senior congressional aide said Tsarnaev had asked several times for a lawyer, but that request was ignored since he was being questioned under the public safety exemption to the Miranda rule.” Greenwald commented that “Delaying Miranda warnings under the “public safety exception” – including under the Obama DOJ’s radically expanded version of it – is one thing… To ignore the repeated requests of someone in police custody for a lawyer, for hours and hours, is just inexcusable and legally baseless.’

In the wake of news reports that he had been Mirandized and would be charged in a federal court, I credited the Obama DOJ for handling the case reasonably well thus far. As it turns out, though, Tsarnaev wasn’t Mirandized because the DOJ decided he should be. Instead, that happened only because a federal magistrate, on her own, scheduled a hospital-room hearing, interrupted the FBI’s interrogation which had been proceeding at that point for a full 16 hours, and advised him of his right to remain silent and appointed him a lawyer. Since then, Tsarnaev ceased answering the FBI’s questions.

But that controversy was merely about whether he would be advised of his Miranda rights. Now, the Los Angeles Times, almost in passing, reports something which, if true, would be a much more serious violation of core rights than delaying Miranda warnings – namely, that prior to the magistrate’s visit to his hospital room, Tsarnaev had repeatedly asked for a lawyer, but the FBI simply ignored those requests, instead allowing the interagency High Value Detainee Interrogation Group to continue to interrogate him alone:

opposablethumbs:
Thanks for the well wishes. My mom is pretty lovely. :)

—

This morning we did the Real Fake After School Special: a staged car accident with high school kids under thick layers of stage makeup pretending to be dead and half dead and screaming and trapped inside crunched cars, while we got out the jaws of life and cut the top off the car. All with their classmates in bleachers looking on. It went off well, and lots of the kids were crying by the end. A doctor gave them a lecture which included a bit about not wanting to scare them. If that wasn’t the point, I don’t know what was.

FossilFishy, I’m looking forward to getting home and looking at that email.
:)
–*careful hugs* for Beatrice. Get well soonest.
–*Horse-free hugs* for rq. I like you, too.
:)
I am, in general, a big fan of The Horde, and the constituent members thereof, despite the Pea-loving Perversity, and/or Horse-Harboring of some individuals.*hugs* all ’round.
–

I just wanted to direct folks to my post on what happens when paleontology meets religion.

TRIGGER WARNING for Rape Culture.Women in advertising and some role reversal. To be honest, some of the examples of role reversals that were not outright violent or rape-y, were pretty empowering for women, at least for me (I’m speaking of the ones of just women posing and the like). Most of them, though, were just as problematic and terrible.

I’m currently in the “work up nerve to make the phone call like a grown up” phase, and it’s progressing better than it sounds. (I got your email, and I appreciate the thoughts, sorry I didn’t answer. I suck at email). I almost chatted at him on gmail, but decided against it.

So. I’m going to call him this afternoon. So he can get the voicemail and pretend he was too busy with work to answer (which may be true *shrug*) and then he can call me later when he assures himself that I don’t sound hysterical or anything.

I watched that upworthy link yesterday…it’s quality work. I didn’t really want to see a dude in a thong but…I guess that’s social conditioning. : p

posted from phone, so no formatting. I’m on th way to an interview ( yay), across town(boo). It’s half anhour already on the road, and another hour til I arrive. Tht said, I love you folks, and send *hugs* to all who wish them.

niftyatheist
No worries, I’m not holding it against you. ;) Typing and all that crap. :)

Dalillama
Good luck!!!! *hugs*

Beatrice
For shame! The new Star Trek trailer has been floating around the ether for months, and you only spot Benedict Cumberbatch now? I’m blaming the cold and medication for this one, because, really, that man’s voice…

WARNING: PORTIA’S TRIVIAL RELATIONSHIP CRAP TO FOLLOW, skip if you’re as bored of it as I am.

I just called S.
He answered after a couple rings.
(Unexpected).
He said he had a client on the line, could he call me back, he’s really sorry, he didn’t want me to think he was ignoring me, and kept bumbling and explaining until I said “Ok, bye, I’m hanging up, it’s fine, bye!”

hahaha rq I knew which response was which ;) I hope it’s not lead-based…but I really can’t be sure ;)

Glodson…good point, it was chocolate flavored paint to be sure.

—-

He called back really quickly (obviously). He had no problem with me getting the stuff this weekend, and understands my mother’s industrious nature well enough to know that my story about my motivation is not a fabrication. He says he will be at his dad’s hunting cabin an hour away (another great reminder of something else that was higher on the priority list than me!) on Saturday for most of the day. I said if he was concerned about us grabbing the right stuff out of his basement or whatever we could do it Sunday. He said no, he was just concerned about being available to help with the lifting and loading. I said my stepdad will probably help, so we should be fine with the three of us. He asked if I wanted to come sort stuff out beforehand in order to make sure I got all my stuff. I know it sounds like a terrible idea but I also know I don’t know what all is down there and it’d be better than him being like “Hey did you accidentally take my box of X?” : |

Somehow the above conversation took ten minutes. He asked how I was at the beginning, in that sort of mournful tone of his that I know so well. I tried to stay chipper, but I know I wasn’t. Oh well.

@ Portia, I cannot help but wonder why you know what paint tastes like. (Joking)

Well, it makes sense about getting the guy to be around for the retrieval of the stuff. It will cut down on the possibility of the call of “hey, can I come over, I’m missing an item,” or other convenient pretenses.

Here’s hoping things go smoothly.

Off topic, I’m kind of bored and am in a pretty bad mood. And none of the usual bad apologists are showing up in my usual haunts, so I’ll just have to stew in my bad mood until one shows up and says something stupid. I hate waiting. Those fuckers seem to wait until I’m in a good mood to say something that will just piss me off.

The New York Review of Books posted an interview with the mysterious “Misha” who supposedly radicalized Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The writer is Christian Caryl.
Excerpt:

Today I was able to meet “Misha,” whose real name is Mikhail Allakhverdov. Having been referred by a family in Boston that was close to the Tsarnaevs, I found Allakhverdov at his home in Rhode Island, in a lower middle class neighborhood, where he lives in modest, tidy apartment with his elderly parents. He confirmed he was a convert to Islam and that he had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but he flatly denied any part in the bombings. “I wasn’t his teacher. If I had been his teacher, I would have made sure he never did anything like this,” Allakhverdov said.

A thirty-nine-year-old man of Armenian-Ukrainian descent, Allakhverdov is of medium height and has a thin, reddish-blond beard. When I arrived he was wearing a green and white short-sleeve football jersey and pajama pants. Along with his parents, his American girlfriend was there, and we sat together in a tiny living room that abuts the family kitchen.

Allakhverdov said he had known Tamerlan in Boston, where he lived until about three years ago, and has not had any contact with him since. He declined to describe the nature of his acquaintance with Tamerlan or the Tsarnaev family, but said he had never met the family members who are now accusing him of radicalizing Tamerlan. He also confirmed he had been interviewed by the FBI and that he has cooperated with the investigation:

I’ve been cooperating entirely with the FBI. I gave them my computer and my phone and everything I wanted to show I haven’t done anything. And they said they are about to return them to me. And the agents who talked told me they are about to close my case.

An FBI spokesman in Boston declined to comment on an ongoing case. Allakhverdov’s statements, however, seemed to bear out recent reports that the FBI have not found any connection between “Misha” and the bomb plot.

One question is why members of the Tsarnaev family have made accusations about Allakhverdov. A close friend of the family in Boston said that Misha was not known to have visited Tamerlan at home….

Oops. With the one I quoted, it’s six. PZ! Did you manage to increase the limit? Does it not count because they’re all to the same domain, which is exactly what I thought might trigger the spam filter?

Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaidensays

First 3 grades in: I aced Transnat, did well above average but short of my goal in Crim, and totally screwed up Torts when I thought I had it aced – that one hurts b/c I felt so good coming out of the exam.

Sigh.

Have 3 grades left to come in. 2 of them are in classes I aced in the Fall, one was in my worst class – property. I’ll be happy if I end up with my 2 strong classes in the Ace category and property score at about the class median, but since Torts fell so short of my expectations, to keep myself on a pace to do the elite-hard-to-get-into work I want to do post-graduation, I absolutely have to have those 2 strong classes in the Ace category. This will be a rough year to overcome if they aren’t.

On the plus side, I haven’t gotten a score below median yet, so since all of my individual scores are above the median, I can’t be in the bottom half of my class. That’s something.

The Democratic Something Or Other Council has been bombarding me with e-mails for days. I give in. Donate here so the Democratic Party doesn’t despair because “the Koch brothers just created a new dark money outside group that could do some real damage”. After all, the election is one and a half weeksyears from now.

Why can’t the jerkfaces time their jerkiness, if they have to perform it, to coincide with moods? Never seems to work that way. : P

Seriously. Come tomorrow when I’m in a good mood(or whenever I manage that feat), someone will appear who seems to have a personal vendetta against reason and empathy. Oh well.

CD

It sounds like you have done fairly well. And I know how an unexpected poor exam can be like a punch to the gut. It just takes the wind out of you. But, all in all, things sound good.

…

Completely useless and petty whining follows. Last night, I went to play my favorite game, but the online mode was on the fritz. Some of the visual effects weren’t loading, making the online play unplayable. Which is why I wanted to play in the first place. So no jerks to blast for being jerks, and I couldn’t play the game I wanted to while in a funk. Thank you, white Jesus.

Thanks for the well-wishes, all. The interview went ok, but I lost the key to my bike lock somewhere along the way, much to my annoyance, especially given that the job would be part time at best anyway. I was going to reply to more stuff, but I’m tired and threadrupt, so I’ll just note that Parsnip is adorable, congratulate CD on the good grades and commiserate on the less good ones, and give Portia *hugs* for the stress dealing with S.

Oh, also, I was listening to this conversation between two young men (early 20’s) on the bus coming home from class today and they managed to make the entire trip (~3 miles) without being douchey about anything—either to one another or towards other people or groups. Despite this, they managed to share their feelings about their life and encourage and (non-douchily) tease one another. It’s really fucking sad that that’s remarkable.

Huzzah!
and*hugs*
–
Crip Dyke, at least those tests are done and over with.*hug*
Hopefully your still-pending tests will yield results more in the neighborhood of what you’re looking to score.
–
Re Parsnip pics: squeeeee!
–*hugs* and encouragement for thunk.
–
FossilFishy: Email successfully received, but for some reason my acknowledgement refused to make the return trip.
“Reply”, type stuff, “Send”. How hard can it be?
–

I feel like the kyriarchy has been beating me over the head today with little stuff. From a friend inventing the word “insanitard” on facebook (Mormon libertarian living up to everything we love about those groups…) to administering AED being more difficult because women wear bras with metal in them. Because we gotta be perky! Ugh.

No worries cicely. I’ve been struggling with email too, just ask rq how many times she got the same email from me. :)

And a little reiteration for them’s that might be threadrupt:

I’ve written a little fragment of music that is intended to be the starting point for Da Lounge Music ™. If anyone wants to hear it, or even better, participate in any way, shape, or form, please email me: coelecanth28 on the googlenator’s mail service and I’ll send you the link to a sheet music version that has a robot player for a basic sense of how it sounds.

There’s been a little email back and forth so far about this, but I’m planning on posting this reminder and status updates here somewhat frequently, not out of egotistical ‘Look at m eeee!” impulses, but because I’m really hoping that more people will join in.

Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaidensays

*hangs head in shame*
*makes Mister Ed mouth motions to get taste of paint out of mouth*
*gives remaining paint-flavored chocolate shifty eyes*

—

About S, thanks CD. I’m sorting through the feelings. One feeling I had last week after the email has grown stronger: validation. He misses me. I’m missable. It’s an improvement from feeling like he just didn’t care at all and I was well rid from his life. (Maybe someday soon my self esteem will be detached from his emotional whims…someday!)

Crip Dyke, Congratulations on the good marks (and consoling wishes for the disappointing one). May the remaining marks be what you are hoping they are.

Portia (hugs) – you did it!! Another hurdle cleared.

Tony – aauughhhh! Those were gross! But in an “I can’t help laughing uncontrollably” way(especially Spiderman *guffaw*, yep that would be more anatomically correct than webs shooting out of his wrists!). :D

Um…so this is a continuing legal education seminar I just got an email about:

DUI Testing: A Demonstration to Help You Advise Your Client
Get the information you need to help your client and your case with this controlled drinking demonstration in which breath instruments and Standardized Field Sobriety Tests are applied to volunteers and discussed!

A. Noyd
Thanks for that article. I hadn’t really thought about it in terms of race before (seriously, thanks!), I was just loving on Benedict Cumberbatch because I lurve his voice. Also, I claim ignorance of old Star Trek (at least the details, general things I’m familiar with), which isn’t much of an excuse, but I promise to be more thoughtful about being excited about these roles in the future. Much food for thought and, yes, now that you’ve brought it to my attention, disappointment that they’ve regressed in this way.

Portia
I saw an experiment like that on TV here! It was amusing. They also showed that, while you may have little to no alcohol in the blood the day after a giant bender, it’s best not to drive because you hvaen’t recovered all your ordinary faculties like attention span, non-tiredness and reflexes.

Parsnip! Congrats on pooing. He is heartmeltingly cute.
—
Crip Dyke, congrats on good results and fingers crossed for the rest
——
A Noyd,
same as rq, I’m not much of a trekkie, I watched the series but don’t remember enough details to realize who BC was supposed to be. Linked article raises good points.
——–
Esteleth, *ouch*
———
Portia, *hugs*
—–
Tony, scientifically accurate Spiderman was hilarious!

I bet you would never say “Hy! How are you?” to a person in passing, without stopping. Meaning that, while finishing with “…you” the person saying it is already a couple of meters past the one asked. What’s the point of that? I’m not sure whether I’m rude if I don’t answer the question, but if I want to answer it, I’m half-shouting back “Fine, thanks”.

It’s just completely useless. I already know that “How are you” rarely expects a sincere answer, but this one expects no answer at all. Wtf then, just don’t say it.

*eyes Beatrice* You… you and your ilk that can get benefits from coffee……. Me? Nooooo, I get to fall asleep if I drink coffee! So I have to muddle through my mornings until my brain boots up around 11am while everyone else is all chipper and cheerful at 8am. *grumbles sleepily and crawls towards her bed* hafta feed kitten in 5 hours. just wanna sleeeeeeep.

Sorry about the bike lock, Dalillama, but hope the interview means you get some hours? (I was too late to wish you good luck. Eh, time zones and a late night last night :-( )
.
Good for you handling things, Portia – not easy! Sounds like things are going in the right direction (and double yay for your mum!).
.
Sorry to hear about the unexpected torts result, CD, but hugely impressed with everything you’re accomplishing. Good luck with the remaining results!
.
Yay Parsnip, stealth ninja of Teh Cute!
.
Hey, Esteleth! It’s good to see you. But sorry about the hand :-(. Liquid nitrogen is … well, let’s just say cool, so as not to offend the nitrogen. My mum used to use it occasionally if one of my brothers had a wart that wanted getting rid of (she would bring some home from work). Oddly enough I’ve only ever had one wart (so far) and wasn’t living at home at the time, so I never experienced the liquid nitrogen treatment myself. So this is like a burn … so does that mean it will eventually heal up on its own?
.
Encouraging Hugs (if acceptable) to thunk. This is a tough time of the academic year … we (or rather, the Spawn) have exams very very soon now … argh.
.
I am currently sober and British, so may I just say that I am Most Partial to the Company of the Horde, of whom I am Extremely Fond, and that I Hold You in the Very Highest Regard.

@rq and Beatrice
Glad you appreciated the article. I figure it’s rather rude of the movie studios to use popular actors that way because people naturally want to get excited about their favorite stars and not have to feel disappointed or feel like they’re complicit in racism just for going to see a movie. There’s no good reason to do things that way, especially not for franchises with massive, established selling power. It is, however, distressingly common.

I hate to do this but I’m getting desperate and search-fu is failing me. I’m pretty sure PZ’s done more than one post on evo psych, but the only one I can find is the last one on Ed Rybicki and his shopping story. Anybody know of others?

I hope fans raise a giant stink about this.
Have you read or watched Hunger Games? Maybe you remember some fans of the books got upset because they expected Rue to be white (even though she is described as having “dark brown skin” in the books). Seriously, one movie that actually makes sure to at least give some racial diversity to the characters, and it becomes a problem. Whitewashing characters… not so much. It’s to be expected, right? Just like Rue was defaulted to white by a number of readers, despite the description, right there in the book.

Beatrice
Well, in the Hunger Games, the main characters aren’t supposed to be white, so they didn’t do everything correctly. (The lead, in reality, is apparently white-blonde… In the book, the main character is like a First Nations colour.)

Really? I missed that. Well then, they still fail at making a lead character non-white. While Rue is a pretty important character, she also kinda fills the role of a black side-character who is there to die and make the white lead show emotions and compassion…. which wouldn’t have looked like that if Katniss were cast non-white.

Hm, I’ve neither seen the movie nor read the books, but according to pfft:

Though Lawrence was 20 when filming began, four years older than the character,[43] Collins said that the role demanded “a certain maturity and power” and said she would rather the actress be older than younger.[44] She added that Lawrence was the “only one who truly captured the character I wrote in the book” and that she had “every essential quality necessary to play Katniss.”[45] Lawrence, a fan of the books, took three days to accept the role, initially intimidated by the size of the production.[3][46]

However, it also claims

In a 2011 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Collins stated that while she did not have any ethnic background in mind for lead characters Katniss and Gale because the book is written in “a time period where hundreds of years have passed” and there would be “a lot of ethnic mixing”, she explains “there are some characters in the book who are more specifically described”, and states that both Rue and Thresh are African American.[140]

A. Noyd
I’ve thought about it, and IMDb says that CB in the part of Khan is only rumoured (which menas it’s probably true), and ok, so maybe they did cast a person of South Asian descent in the part… But really, they’re still relying on CB to do all the promotion and marketing bits – narrating the trailer and whatnot. So, even if the Khan in the movie will be of appropriate ancestry, they’re being assholes about it.
Personally, it would be awesome to see a relative unknown with a fantastic voice narrating the trailers and also starring in such a large movie. For a franchise like Star Trek, I doubt it would be much of a risk. And there must be South Asians out there whose voices can match CB, there simply must!

Beatrice
They did better… But not perfect. ;)

John Morales
If you’ve read the books, Katniss is clearly described in some parts with darker skin and long black hair.
Also, I’m pretty sure there are non-white actresses out there who are of a mature enough age to play Katniss. That’s a pretty cheap cop-out, to say they picked her for the maturity. If the author says she captured the role, fine, but I don’t think they need to make the excuse about maturity or whatever.

Happy May Day/ International Workers’ Day, carlie, and everyone else!
I am unhappy that all the food stores, bakeries and cafes that work on Sundays are open today. It’s important that they don’t work on Christmas or Easter, but on International fucking Workers’ Day, those people are working. At least they are being payed fairly, I hope.

I’m with rq about Katniss’ race. She’s clearly described as olive-skinned and with black hair. It talks about her sister being far more fair than she is, but J-Law is pretty pale as it is. So Collins can say what she wants about it, that doesn’t make her not part of the problem. (Even if a whitey white girl was the author’s intent, that is, my argument is still that the part would have looked better on someone even slightly less white bread).

—

I’m up early. To exercise. What’s happening? Who am I? What’s going on? I must be a hostage somewhere. Someone heeeelp. : p

In other news, I am resolutely finding ways of avoiding about half of the downtown are area of the city I live in.

Because someone or another, in their great wisdom, decided that a medium-sized city in Upstate was the perfect place to film Spider-Man. I wonder if they’re going to photoshop out the (distinctive) Kodak building.

Buena Vista Township Clerk Gloria Platko, a Democrat, revealed her inner racist when during a phone call with Interim Township Manager Dexter Mitchell, calling the Township Supervisor Dwayne Parker an “arrogant n*gger”. Referring to Parker, she said, “He is just doing whatever he can. You know what I think of Mr. Parker right now, and I know you’re not even going to like this. But he’s just an arrogant n*gger. And I’m sorry to say it that way, but that’s the way I feel.” Not so sorry that she couldn’t just keep her racist sputum to herself, it seems.

Platko is actually defending herself with statements like “I’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner with black friends at their house so I’m far from prejudiced” and “To those of you who know me, you know that I don’t have a discriminatory bone in my body”.

Buena Vista Township Clerk Gloria Platko, a Democrat, revealed her inner racist when during a phone call with Interim Township Manager Dexter Mitchell, calling the Township Supervisor Dwayne Parker an “arrogant n*gger”. Referring to Parker, she said, “He is just doing whatever he can. You know what I think of Mr. Parker right now, and I know you’re not even going to like this. But he’s just an arrogant n*gger. And I’m sorry to say it that way, but that’s the way I feel.” Not so sorry that she couldn’t just keep her racist sputum to herself, it seems.

Platko is actually defending herself with statements like “I’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner with black friends at their house so I’m far from prejudiced” and “To those of you who know me, you know that I don’t have a discriminatory bone in my body”.

Anyone ever have those moments when you want to respond to someone (online), but just cannot find the words you’re looking for, and in a fit of exasperation, opt to say nothing?

Often. Works the same way in Meatspace, too. Sucks.
:(
–

Have you read or watched Hunger Games? Maybe you remember some fans of the books got upset because they expected Rue to be white (even though she is described as having “dark brown skin” in the books).

I remember it! I hadn’t seen the movie yet (and have yet to read the book), but it reminds me of another incident, in this that passes for my Real Life—I was at the theater, killing time while The Husband parked the car, by talking about The Avengers with one of the employees. For him, the movie was a Complete Failure, and not worth watching—solely because they’d cast a black man as Nick Fury. If not for that, it would have been a good film.
:(
–

Platko is actually defending herself with statements like “I’ve eaten Thanksgiving dinner with black friends at their house so I’m far from prejudiced” and “To those of you who know me, you know that I don’t have a discriminatory bone in my body”.

South Carolina’s special election just got a little bit dirtier, with a conservative group reportedly using push polls – phone calls disguised as polls, but aimed at influencing voters – to dissaude voters from supporting Democrat Elizabeth Colbert Busch.

According to ThinkProgress, multiple individuals in the state have reported receiving phone calls from the shady conservative group “SSI Polling,” which claims to be polling on the race between Colbert Busch and Mark Sanford, but does not mention Sanford at all in the calls.

According to ThinkProgress, some of the questions were:

– “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you she had had an abortion?”

– “What would you think of Elizabeth Colbert Busch if I told you a judge held her in contempt of court at her divorce proceedings?”…

Gross. In particular, the abortion and divorce questions are beyond the pale. Push polling is an evil, trashy thing to do anyway, but to target a female politician with questions that prompt the public to think of her as having an abortion and as being divorced are clearly just a means of rousing misogynist attitudes. Talk about playing to the lowest of the low. If Busch had an abortion, that is her private business.

Let’s do a push poll that asks “- “What would you think of Mark Sanders if I told you he had had a penis enhancement operation?”

Have you read or watched Hunger Games? Maybe you remember some fans of the books got upset because they expected Rue to be white (even though she is described as having “dark brown skin” in the books). Seriously, one movie that actually makes sure to at least give some racial diversity to the characters, and it becomes a problem.

Haven’t read or watched ’em, but I saw the reactions bigots had to Rue (and the dude w/ the gold eyeliner played by Lenny Kravitz, too). Why anyone would want to foster the expectations of racists that everyone in a book or movie is whiter than bleached chalk is beyond me. It’s easier for bigots to make that a problem if they’re used to getting their way. I’m sure execs would whine about the bottom line, but really, if they can’t make a decent profit casting newcomers in Hunger Games or Star Trek, then they’re probably relying too much on stars to sell it.

~*~*~*~*~*~*~

rq (#202)

I’ve thought about it, and IMDb says that CB in the part of Khan is only rumoured…

Also, I’m pretty sure there are non-white actresses out there who are of a mature enough age to play Katniss.

Oh but, you know, there aren’t. Just like there are never any women* qualified for jobs, or a s speakers and whatyougot.
How hard did they look? Did they audition “olive skinned actresses only”? How many non-white actresses did Collins get to see? I’m perfectly willing to believe that Jennifer Lawrence really captured Katniss for her. I’m also pretty convinced that there is the non lilly-white actress around who would have done just as well**
It’s that meritocracy bullshit that presupposes that there’s only ever one person who’s best qualified who then deserves the job.
*I guess if it weren’t for gratitious boobie-shots they’d still claim that there are no talented women to play female characters.
**Which reminds me that I’m really looking forward to the “Beasts of the Southern Wild DVD release this month

rq #209 wow, I remember an earlier story (last year sometime) about the threatened cut to PEARL – thanks for the link that follows it up. ugh

Lynna #217 This is so infuriating. I often wonder if the biggest part of the conservative strategy is to exhaust progressives with the sheer volume of crap they keep vomiting out. It really is hard to stay afloat in the barrage some days. I don’t know how other people manage it – I find I have to step back several times a month because I’m overwhelmed – and of course, the flood continues unabated.

I am ready to throttle my adult felines. I had to take 4 sets of x-rays so far this year because of Hawthorn and Burdock doing Bad Things.

Burdock, this year, has eaten couch foam, 4 inches of USB cable, and shoelaces. Fortunately the first passed, and the latter 2 he vomited up.
Hawthorn is having wonderful signs that are spot-on classic for an intestinal foreign body, but x-rays show nothing. He may have severe IBD instead and will be put on a special diet once we get him over the current vomiting, tenesmus, and diarrhea.

“In the end it didn’t pass because we’re so politicized. There were some on my side who did not want to be seen helping the president do something he wanted to get done, just because the president wanted to do it,” Toomey admitted on Tuesday in an interview with Digital First Media editors in the offices of the Times Herald newspaper in Norristown, Pa. — Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pa.)

Does that mean that [Republican policymakers are] post-policy, that the policy actually — even some things that seem like constants don’t actually a matter them, that it’s pure politics, just positioning themselves vis-a-vis the president, and they’re not actually invested in any particular outcome for the country? — Rachel Maddow

Hawthorn normally just chews (he provided the cable bits to Burdock). But you’re right. Most cats don’t do this. Burdock, however, has pica. At 9 months old he had a gastrotomy to remove: A wad of carpeting and a carpet staple from literally eating his cat tree. A bunch of human hair. A entire thing of cat-grass (which he ate a month before surgery, including the dirt). A lid to a gallon jug of milk. An empty tylenol wrapper.

He has eaten, and enjoyed, all manner of fruits, bread, peppercinis, wasabi paste, tennis ball fluff, sprouts, green beans, lettuce, etc. If you offer it to him, he will very likely eat it.

WTF, a young woman who did an ill-advised science experiment at her high school is being charged with a felony as an adult. What the fuck is wrong with people, ruining the life of a student who was curious and meant no harm? If the school wants to send a message, there are far better messages and far better ways to send them.

Almost half (44 percent) of all self-described Republican voters say they believe “an armed revolution might be necessary to protect our liberties.” Just as bad, more Republicans believe an armed revolution might be necessary than believe one isn’t necessary.

The quote above is an excerpt from a Salon article that also notes the authoritarian, anti-democratic forces in the Republican Party, and how those forces remain strong.

One of my cats loves licking plastic wrapping materials, like the kinds that come around DVDs, on top of microwave dinners, or around individually wrapped, fancy Japanese rice crackers. She’ll drag the wrappers out of the trash and hide them under my bed. At least she doesn’t try to ingest pieces, but it’s still weird.

Homeschooling, evangelical Christians are the new white, and they are the new favored immigrants:

Rick Santorum. The former senator has taken a hard line against undocumented immigrants in the past, saying that however you got here, once you’re in the United States without permission “everything you’re doing while you’re here is against the law.” Unless, of course, you’re home schooling. Santorum posted a photo of the very white-bread Romeike family with the word “DEPORT” stamped over it, calling on his Facebook fans to sign the White House petition. Home schooling: the new white.

It blows my mind that these people are willing to violate the first clause of Article III (that part about levying war against the government being treason) in alleged protection of the Second Amendment. If the Constitution meant so damn much to them, peaceful, democratic change is the way they would go. But we all know their concern for the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to the rest of the Constitution.

It blows my mind that these people are willing to violate the first clause of Article III (that part about levying war against the government being treason) in alleged protection of the Second Amendment. If the Constitution meant so damn much to them, peaceful, democratic change is the way they would go. But we all know their concern for the Second Amendment doesn’t apply to the rest of the Constitution.

Jon Stewart presented a great segment on the ways in which the right wing talks big when it comes to love of the Constitution, but then the right proceeds to propose ignoring the Constitution. Examples are given of the right wing advocating doing away with all of our guaranteed rights.

… All of which shines a harsh spotlight on the FDA’s “voluntary” approach to curbing antibiotic use on farms. Between 2003 and 2011, antibiotic use on US livestock farms soared from 20 million pounds per year to 30 million pounds—a jaw-dropping 50 percent leap. These facilities now suck in 80 percent of the antibiotics consumed in the United States. The great bulk of these drugs are used not to treat sick animals, but rather to make them grow faster and keep them alive until slaughter under tight, filthy conditions.

Meanwhile, there’s the US Department of Agriculture’s imminent plan to slash the number of inspectors it places on poultry-industry kill lines (chicken and turkey) while simultaneously allowing those same kill lines to be sped up….

I didn’t notice any reference to the direct conflict between Article III and their chosen method of protecting the Second Amendment. Not that it makes them any less hypocrites if they were just arguing for abolishing the Fourth, Fifth, and Sixth.

abscess cut open and drained last night. She was in bad shape — ashen, feverish, in severe pain (and that was with a narcotic pain killer and sulfa drugs). The doctor (who looked like he was, maybe, 12 years old) was competent and not surprised (which is always a good thing). He made a 2cm incision and then put forceps 4cm into the wound and kept opening it to ‘loosen things up.’ He got about 1/4 cup of oogie out of it. Wife is still sore, but the fever is gone, her colour is good, the pain is minimized. She still has a ‘wick’ (30cm of absorbent tape) in the wound which will come out on Thursday night. Holy crap that was scary. i am so glad we live in an age with antibiotics and doctors who know what the hell they are doing. They are doing a culture of a sample to determine if it is mersa or another antibiotic resistant bacteria.

=====

Girl will be home for dinner tonight. I just deep-fried some firm tofu — crispy and brown on the outside — which I will stir-fry with baby corn, baby zucchini, sugar snap peas, onion, sweet red pepper, garlic and ginger, and I will serve it over Japanese buckwheat noodles. I tried one of the cubes of deep-fried tofu (with a little salt) and damn, it tastes good. Great flavour and not at all oily.

=====

The weather is beautiful (I called in with some sick time at work to take care of Wife — she can be, er, odd? when on painkillers). Mid-70s, breezy, not a cloud in the sky. Nice for a change.

I’ll admit I’m quite glad I read that after finishing supper and not just before.
Hope your wife recovers well now Ogvorbis, and that they turn out to be easily vanquished bacteria. Sounds frightening indeed. Yay for painkillers and antibiotics (and here’s hoping we develop more antibiotics before the current lot are hopelessly outstripped in the arms race).

Meanwhile, there’s the US Department of Agriculture’s imminent plan to slash the number of inspectors it places on poultry-industry kill lines (chicken and turkey) while simultaneously allowing those same kill lines to be sped up….

while we’re at it, increasing kill line speed also directly increases the suffering of animals due to screwed-up kills, and the rate of injuries (both acute and repetitive-stress) to line workers. IMHO line speeds should be capped, with penalties, no matter how much the big meat oligopoly screams about it.

Ogvorbis @246: I don’t know the whole story but it sounds as though things are going well. Yay.

As far as The Hunger Games: I was working in the books career when it was impending and Scholastic had a lot of money to throw after Harry Potter hit so I read it. I kind of had to, before Book Expo America, whatever year that was. It was an easy read but I never liked how passive Katniss was. She was not really a hero.

Here in Russia, I had a student who wanted me to watch the movie with her (yes, I get paid for this) to explain to her idioms. The movie was not at all how I’d pictured the story while reading. It hyper-showed Katniss’s faults and over-played the romance. (I’d read it as overt nonchalance, but that’s me.)

Now is the time of the year when light defeats darkness and the sun is up until 10pm. It’s such an abrupt change from setting at 4pm to setting at 10pm and the temperature is the same. One day it’s -6 C, the next day it’s +19 and my lips are cracked for three weeks.

heck, I’m overcommitted and losing half my posts. Anyway, today’s Blogging Against Disablism day (that’s ‘ableism’ in the US) and Skepchick has a couple of posts, including one by Chris Hofstader (Gonz Blinko on Twitter):

Some of the disablism comes in the form of incredibly fearful statements made by those who do not self-identify as having a disability. Recently, a good friend of mine saw one of her Facebook friends repeat an oft-made statement, “I’d rather die than go blind.” We’ll just assume that her belief system includes the notion that losing one’s vision is worse than death and that life without vision is her analogue of hell. Hearing our computers read such statements aloud even makes people who have had disabilities from birth hurt badly. The women who made the post, when informed of her hurtful statements, never posted anything saying that she realized how painful it was for us to read.

[…]

Disablism enters the workplace in many ways, some of which are based entirely in willful ignorance and others from fear. On more than one job interview, I’ve been asked, “Do you think a blind person can do this job?” If such a question was asked of anyone from a racial or ethnic minority, they would have cause for legal action; asking a person with a disability this same question is allowed under US law–there are actually exemptions to fundamental US civil rights laws that specifically include our population. I’ve also been asked, “How can a blind person get to work?” as if buses, subways and sidewalks had all been removed and, in an entirely chauvinistic manner, they assume that the automobile is the only possible way one can get from one point to another.

also from the Twitter discussion on #a11y, the inventor of the EyeWriter, an open-source invention that allowed a hospitalized artist with ALS to make artwork again using only eye movements.

Uh-oh. I was trying to hide the fact that I regularly read cicely’s mind in order to come up with something to post on Pharyngula, but now my secret is revealed. What will we think of next, cicely?

It’s okay. They’ll never believe that the mind responsible for the Monitoring of Moments of Mormon Madness could possibly be collaborating with the Prophet of the Equine Apocalypse and Scourger of the Peas! All we gotta do is play it cool.
:)
Soooo…about those Mormon pea factories, worked by Horse-whipped “volunteer” labor….
–
Ogvorbis: All of that @ your 246? Sounds flashbackingly familiar. Don’t be surprised if it is MRSA.

Lysol is your friend. That and Hibiclens.*all the hugs*, for you and Wife.
–rq, I hope you are better in the morning. I’d *hug* you, but I just unloaded my entire stock on Ogvorbis.
–

(long description of abscess being drained)
(Bevis and Butt-Head go “Wow! That was cool!”)

Reading Ogvorbis’s description of his wife as “ashen” gave me a jolt. I’ve now been living alone for more than 2 months, mrmagnificent should be home permanently in 3 weeks time, and I’ve ‘managed’ the best I can.

I’ve been counting spoons, and often running out, all this time. I’ve just realised that I’ve been trying to do this without mr telling/warning me when I’m in a bad way. Sometimes he’s extra solicitous from the time I first wake up. Offering pain medication and the like. If I ask what it’s all about, he points out that he observed that I was white/grey/blue – “ashen” – around the mouth while I was asleep.

No wonder I’m so often running out of steam. Until someone invents a mirror we can look in while sleeping, we need other ways to work out just how well or how badly off we might be. Just me really, but surely I can’t be the only one.

In more than one job interview, I’ve been asked, “Do you think a blind person can do this job?” If such a question was asked of anyone from a racial or ethnic minority, they would have cause for legal action; asking a person with a disability this same question is allowed under US law–there are actually exemptions to fundamental US civil rights laws that specifically include our population.

Gyah. It’s not like there aren’t jobs a blind person couldn’t do safely and reliably (“pilot” comes to mind), but FFS, it’s not like these things wouldn’t occur to people with disabilities. >.>

Lynna OM
Thanks so much for the link to Tig Notaro. I liked the story about how she kept running into Taylor Dane (one of my all-time favorites), then Taylor Dane walked onstage and sang to her. So much joy. : D

As OK as I’m likely to be today. I’m up to the mark with anti-inflammatories but I’m all out of super duper codeine today. I always take a couple of days off after 2 or 3 days on anyway – keeps the withdrawal headaches away and keeps maximum effectiveness for the ‘on’ days. It’s just juggling pain/ fatigue from pain/ relief from pain day to day.

When I get it right, the pain relief from the days ‘on’ means I’m not worn out by pain on the days ‘off’ – so I can tolerate it better. When I get it really wrong, I can be both worn out from pain and brain fogged from pain medication at the same time. With any luck I can sleep a day like that off. My worst sin at the moment is having spent most of the last 2 days in bed – too much lying down gives my back, neck, hips the willies. I’ll live. I’ll be better after I get new supplies – it’s always easier to put up with pain if you know you can break the rules and take the medication despite it not being the best idea on the day in question. (I’m having mr home for two consecutive days on the weekend, so I’m keeping maximum benefit in reserve for driving a couple of hundred kms in 48 hours – a very good idea.)

@rorschach
Yup. We’re apparently making pointless vandalism and violence a tradition here. If the goal of the hooligans was to make protesting harder for peaceful people next year, they did a great job, I’m sure.

Oslo, a recycling-friendly place where roughly half the city and most of its schools are heated by burning garbage

Meanwhile, Australia is still relying on coal, and is blocking wind farms because of some parrot, and their impact on the landscape.

But that will go well with our 100Mbit internet that may be rolled out until about 2020. 10 years to go and it’s already slow compared to many places in Asia(or Kansas City). And if the conservatives win government in September, we’ll be forever frozen at current speeds.

Add to that the fact that we can’t send an undisturbed digital radio signal from Melbourne to Frankston 40km away, and this country is really like fucking Nigeria when it comes to energy and infrastructure.

I’ve been going to physical therapy the last few weeks – seems I’m this thing called “hyper-mobile” which means I’m double-jointed. Hyper-mobility comes with an increased risk of dislocations, sprains, osteoarthritis, and such other things. It also means that persons who are hyper-mobile need to keep up with exercise a lot more than the average person, or their joints will wear out from being used too much.

So I hadn’t done that, and about three months ago, my shoulder and neck started really hurting me. So I went to the doc after about a month of that. He got me started on PT. My appointments are at 5 PM cause I work til 4 PM every day. I have to leave at 3.30 in order to make the appointment however, so I’ve been using sick leave. I get 4 hours of sick leave every pay period, and I have two appointments weekly. I use 2 hours of sick leave every pay period, so I’m really only getting 2. It’ll take me 2 months to build up one day of sick leave.

So this morning I ask my supervisor”Hey, can I work til 3.30 instead of 4? I get in at 6.45 every morning anyway. I’ll stay til 4 on Friday (aside: I have a meeting on Fridays that lasts til 4).” Not an unreasonable request, I can still do all the work I need to do.

NOPE, says the person above him on the chain. No dice.

So now I’m getting half the sick leave of everyone else, because my boss won’t accept an extremely reasonable request.

shameless plug
For my fellow Hordelings on Facebork, I have created a page called “Virology Fact of The Day” with the encouragement of other hordelings. The purpose should be obvious from the title.
/shameless plug

*hugs* It seems at times that the only thing modern capitalism does well is pointless authority for the sake of being official.

Impending Life Collapse Update:

Work thing is… continuing. For two glorious weeks, it looked like they were going to abandon the whole dicking me around on hours thing and just let me ride out my last month as if I was just another employee. But that apparently was just because no one is getting any hours this week or next and so it was impossible to dick me around on hours without actually handing me zero hours. So that’ll be continuing again when things pick up. Also, it looks like they are vaguely aware that I might do something, so they’ve already set up their sacrificial lamb in the form of my Big Boss. They’ve quietly removed her from her position and set her in charge of a specific project with a limited shelf life, so it looks like they are pinning the whole discrimination thing on her even though that’s laughably not the case (for one thing if it was true, then the discrimination and dicking around would have stopped when she was quietly replaced and instead it’s continued on).

In happier work news, one coworker has abandoned their “are you sure it’s not all in your head” self-defense and has come to admit that shit has been going down though they can’t process why and so have been very emotionally supportive. Additionally, I was talking to another coworker and noted that they had questions about how I be a long time ago and so asked them if they still had those questions. They said, yeah, they had questions, and their question was essentially that they’d noticed the discrimination happening against me and what the fuck was up with all that. That was really awesome because they figured it out independently without me filling in any blanks, which helps remind me that the shit is going on and is obvious enough that people unconnected can see what’s going down.

In more unfortunate news, I came out to my Uncle because he gives us financial support from time to time and when I needed to ask for financial help recently because I was receiving too few hours, I thought it important to tell him why. This was an incredibly stupid idea, unfortunately. My partner was being emotionally supported by considering him created family and while he initially seemed cool and while I think he’s trying to come from a good place, he’s filled with some impressively terrible ignorances about queer issues and some incredibly offensive comparisons (you coming out as trans is like those “muslim killers” (his words) because it’s a dramatic and sudden change to their families).

We had a conversation altogether that I rode as best I could, making sure I didn’t blow up in his face.

Unfortunately, there’s another follow-up email that I’m trying to figure out how to respond to. I mean, I know the way I would naturally respond to it, but we actually get along really well in every other way so I want to try and maintain as much of that relationship as I can while also educating him on his deep ignorances (but not in a way that seems to threaten or condescend to him) and relating how much some of his examples and assumptions are deeply hurtful.

Sunday was odd. When I asked questions to you Partner answered. Don’t you have anything to say or think?

I hate to see you abused by Partner (intentionally or not).

On Sunday you never addressed how or what kind of career you will be able to obtain. You completed your graduate work in Time. If your head is all sexually upset how can you be a teacher or hold down any career? Is sex all you think about? There is more things to enjoy in life than sex.

Some comments back would be appreciated.

Regarding Sunday –

Cerberus,

When I asked you if you were Bi-sexual, Partner jumped in and said she was Bi and you were transgender. She said she could recommend books to me. That was so helpful to answer for you and correct me.

You have two Bio degrees but when I asked about your prostate you said you didn’t have one (which Partner corrected and said you did have one). When you had a full beard in Place did you make Partner furious (didn’t like your bearded lady look) and had you shave everything off? Not a very feminine look, why did you grow it?

When I asked about you two having kids Partner responded with artificial insemination or adoption. Partner already has your dick and balls removed from future considerations.

Partner’s poetry book mentions her sexual satisfaction a lot but never touches (no pun intended) on pleasing her lover. Is she all about her own sexual pleasure and nothing about a partners climax?

The reference (near the end) of her poetry book of a fantasy where her male lover becomes hairless and his penis becomes a vagina and his balls a labia is insane. That sounds very lesbian (if anything) and not Bi at all. To suggest she would love you more as a gal is not Bi-sexual.

Transgender –

When I asked you if being a transgender would mean you wished to cut off your dick and balls Partner answered that may or not occur. Are you doing as she wishes, do you have a mind of your own? You are very hairy, not clear how you could go hairless outside of bathing in acid to scar all hair follicles off your body. If you were left scarred with no penis and balls would Partner be content that no one else would seek to be your friend or lover?

Bio note-

If you cut off your dick and balls and get an opening to pee out of you will not have a clitoris and will not be able to feel any sexual excitement (except by imagination). Your penis head provides pleasure and once it is removed so is any ability to climax.

In fairness if Partner loves you and has your dick and balls removed you should have her cut off her clitoris so you two would be “sexually” equal. Just a thought.

To love someone so much you would mutilate yourself and your lover is pushing you to that end is not a sign of a great relationship. You played many fantasy games as kid but you are old enough now to understand the real world from fantasy. What kind of sexual relation do you have with Partner? Do you fornicate or has she reduced you to a limp dick confused about who you are? Why did you move in with girls in college rather than guys if you are feminine?

I hate to see someone controlled by another. I would like to hear your thoughts (without Partner’s inputs). I still have many questions but would like to see you (not Partner) tell me about what is going on in your life and mind.

Best Regards,

Uncle (your concerned uncle)

… yeah. And sorry about being gone for awhile. Also been dealing with some creepy stalkers coming out of the woodwork and I ended up giving myself a mental block where I didn’t feel quite as safe posting here than I would otherwise be. Hooray for mind betraying oneself.

Cerberus
Just… wow. And *hugs* or other *gesture* if you prefer, I’m so sorry you have to be going through all this and dealing with this ignorance in people.
You are amazing.
And I’m sad that all I can help you with is some vague, distant moral support (and a whole lot of anger on your behalf). :( But it’s there, for all it’s worth!!!

Your uncle’s letter is so full of bullshit, it may have broken Pharyngula (no, it’s actually something with wordpress and updates breaking the site, but your uncle’s letter is just so…. Arggggh!).
Your concerned uncle is so fucking concerned, he’s treating you like you’re stupid. While at the same time accusing your partner of controlling you. And all the intrusive questions about your sexuality? Fuck that. Just because you came out to him as trans doesn’t justify him suddenly asking for facts about your sex life or the exact state of your genitals.

Well, clearly my being this way is an ill-thought-through choice on my part. That’s why I’m so willing to put up with so much intense bullshit on a daily basis, because flighty spur-of-the-moment decisions are always continued in the face of immense social backlash.

Beatrice @288

That’s going to be the struggle. Educating the ignorance without letting the righteous fury at the various bullshit and condescension leak through and spoil the good parts of our relationship (and there are a lot of good parts, shame he had to turn heel on something so central to me).

cicely, Dalillama, and Hekuni Cat @289, 291, 292

Thanks for the hugs and support. (A trans friend of mine noted that this period of her life was the “long dark teatime of her soul”. The aptness of her Douglas Adams reference definitely resonates)

Maybe set up the boundaries right away by telling him that you are well aware of physical changes involved with transitioning, but that you feel that sharing your sexual habits or details about your genitals is too personal and shouldn’t be necessary. Followed by a pointer to some good book or web site that explains the basics.

I dunno, maybe that would be counterproductive and giving him three paragraphs of explanations would be better, but the idea is to somehow correct his ignorance, but distance him from your body. Because his questions are just… *shudder*

Cerberus
Good luck with the letter! Snark is always welcome. ♥
Oh, and try to make better choices in the future. :P [/too much snark?]
Seriously, I must still be feverish, because I just want to say I love you. In that weird internet-hordish kind of way and just so you know.

Good FSM, that’s intrusive and weird and …creepy. I really hate it when people I love and look up to and really cherish say horrible, terrible, no-good things. I have little constructive advice but i have these *hugs*. They are imbued with extra *moral support* too.

Mildlymagnificent:

Hope you can take good care of yourself. *hugs*

Ogvorbis:

I think you’re great. *hugs*

—–

I had a really neat moment today meeting with a pro bono client who is an immigrant from an African country*. He said he was really happy to have someone finally care and take him seriously in his small claims dispute. He said everyone said he wouldn’t get any justice because he wasn’t from here and “wasn’t American.” It was a really nice affirmation in the midst of a lot of frustrating cases. Reminder of why I do what I do. It was really timely, too. Just yesterday we had a luncheon speaker talk about the Civil Rights movement and how hard it still is for people of color to get justice in our system and the importance of pro bono work to combat the imbalance.

I thought you might have feelings like that, dear Ogvorbis, which is why I said, only if you want to. Maybe someday when your depression gnomes are quieter and less convincing? Anyway, I think you’re wonderful.

When I poked myself in the eye about a year ago… it seems there was some permanent damage. The place is normally not noticeable unless you look carefully, but when my eyes get a bit red when I’m tired, this little place gets really read. Blood flow disruption or something like that, I guess.
Doesn’t hurt and I can’t say whether my eyesight was affected since my eyesight on that eye has always been worse than the other.

Lesson, kids. Poking yourself in the eye is bad. Try not to be that clumsy.

Good evening
Hell, it’s late. Been working on a presentation. The one I didn’t have a clear topic (well, I chose “women” when the “topics” were handed out, but I only get 15 minutes…)
*safe hugs* to Cerberus and Katherine.

Ogvorbis

I am so scared of ever meeting any of you in real life. I’m afraid you would find out what I am really like, just how broken I really am. Sorry.

I have many friends I got to know via the internet. Some I will probably never meet in meatspace. Others I meet once in a while. Others again I see regularly, like my BFF. In all those years, with all those people I learned one thing: People are not very different online than they are offline. So when people will meet you, they will very likely not be disappointed.
*chocolate covered hugs*
Also hugs to Mrs. Ogvorbis. I feel for her. I once had a strep B wound infection and it was not nice.

If you want to say something in the vein of gentle response, you might say something like “I really want to have a good dialogue with you, and it hurts my feelings to hear you say you think I’m not making my own decisions.”

Ha! Thanks, I’ve stolen one of them and modified it, but I prefer to leave it ambiguous just which one ;)

Which brings me to:

If you were left scarred with no penis and balls would Partner be content that no one else would seek to be your friend or lover?

I know how I would respond to this if it was just some asshole on the internet, but I’m trying to figure out how to say, “um, that’s unbelievably offensive and your basic assumptions are painfully inaccurate about the world” while being sympathetic to his fuckwit head space.

Ugh. I went to play badminton with the over-55s for the first time in months today, as my tennis elbow is almost resolved and I thought to test it out. Played three games, elbow held up OK, but then I stayed on for coffee. Now I already knew at least some of the group have their prejudices, I’ve tried to politely but firmly indicate that I don’t share them, but these were just people I played badminton with, and I’d thought I could just avoid getting into arguments. Big mistake. Today, someone started complaining about the existence of a new “Gypsy”* encampment in the neighbourhood. I was trying to formulate an appropriate response when the husband of one of the players came out with the following gem:

Hitler had the right idea about Gypsies.

Me (without any thought at all, this is just what came out):

Oh for fuck’s sake. That’s not funny.

*gets up and leaves without another word*
I only wish I’d said something much stronger – the vile remark did not, in fact, appear to be made in jest, although a couple of the others laughed half-heartedly. I just wanted to be away from that scumbag as fast as possible. No-one else made any objection, at least before I was out of hearing. And of course, that’s the end of my badminton.

In fairness if Partner loves you and has your dick and balls removed you should have her cut off her clitoris so you two would be “sexually” equal. Just a thought.

…

Flames. Flames on the side of my face.

…

So yeah, I’m thinking I might just write “… I understand you are upset and confused and apparently have decided to blame Partner for my medical condition. But I also think you understand just how incredibly offensive and cruel this statement is. I’ll refrain from informing Partner that it exists and would please ask that you check such comments in the future if you wish this relationship to remain as productive and loving as we both want it to be.”

Fuck, Cerberus. I’m just sorry you have the disappointment of this relative turning out to be so obsessed and to fall so far short of respecting you. I’m sorry you maybe thought this was someone you could talk to, or at least someone you could trust enough to come out to. It’s hard when you’re hoping for a supportive reaction and you get the polar opposite, and I can’t even imagine how it could feel to get this. If you can refrain from biting his head off, you’re a ninja of self-control.
.
mildlymagnificent, I wish I could send you some extra spoons – sounds like you need a whole canteen at the moment. Hope you manage to get some rest, and that the homecoming goes well!
.
Hugs to Kitty for stupid workplace unhelpful attitudes, and to anyone else who would like one.

Cerberus
Best of luck with that. Seriously, L’s (not very supportive) family said some stupid shit when he came out to them, but the crap your uncle’s pulling here takes not only the cake, but also the serving platter, table, and the carpet to boot.

Nick
I would have difficulty responding to a statement like that without shouting obscenities.

I realise that you’ve finished your message, but I thought I’d chip in with a couple of ideas.

1. His reaction looks to an outsider very much like the eleven year old who’s finally put it all together about what sex really involves and that the parents do this icky thing. Ewwww!!

2. As for Partner stepping in. I’d point out to uncle that partner had to step in because they saw that you were a bit overwhelmed by his statements and was helping you by giving you the chance to catch your breath/ hold your temper/ not get too upset. That’s what good partners do.

As for all that body/ sexual activity stuff – if you wouldn’t give intimate details of such matters with him regardless of the nature or condition of your anatomy, so you won’t in this particular circumstance.

I know we always second guess ourselves after such moments, wondering what we could have said or done better. As far as I can see you got it exactly right. You won’t change his disgusting mind, but he might think twice about what he says in public in the future. And that’s all we can hope for.

Portia: You rock! Your client is incredibly lucky in his represenatation!
–

I was trying to formulate an appropriate response when the husband of one of the players came out with the following gem:

Hitler had the right idea about Gypsies.

O.o

Nick, I’d say that you made it unequivocally clear that you Did Not Approve of his bigotry, and much more tactfully than if you’d hit him upside the head with a dead fish. Not at all bad, for off the cuff! I’m always left gaping and unable to formulate an appropriate response in that kind of situation.
–

Fucking hell Cerebus. If that were my uncle I would walk away and never have anything to do with him again. Mind you, I’m fantastically lucking in my circumstances because I have the ability to walk away if I so choose. Please select any and/or all appropriate items from this pile. [gestures to a two story stack of puppies, chocolate, manatees, booze, hugz and various other comfort items]

Ogvorbis

Unless you’ve been dishonest in your posts here I cannot imagine being in any way surprised were we to meet in the meat as it were. I would love to sit down with you, share a meal and a drink, and ramble away a few hours talking about the things in life that we find fascinating. I expect I’d come away with a secondhand passion for the wilderness of America, I might even glean some faint understanding of why anyone would subject themselves to a cigar. Mind you, I’m pretty sure that when talk turns to guitars my defense of the electrified version is unassailable.

We are all more than our damage.

We are all a glorious mash of good, bad and indifferent traits.

I am more than capable of looking at the balance of those traits in the people I interact with. And when I see someone such as yourself, a kind, compassionate, intelligent person. A person who struggles with what they’ve done and what’s been done to them. A person who chooses to end the cycle of harm emphatically, unequivocally, well, that’s a person I want in my life no matter how damaged they feel they are. Damage I can deal with, evil I cannot. You are not evil.

Anyway, this is all moot. We’re unlikely to ever meet. But should the opportunity arise I would be honoured to do so, and I don’t use that word lightly.

Be well Ogvorbis, and know that there are people here who value you in a way that you seem incapable of doing for yourself.

Nick:
Damn. What goes on in the minds of people who *think*, let alone speak such horrifying things?
Your comment was strong and concise AND aided by you walking away.
****

Cerberus:
Your uncles statements were deeply insulting and intrusive. I hope you are able to get through to him (framing any response by focusing on how you were made to feel, rather than any-HIGHLY JUSTIFIED INSULTS-is a possibility.

Somewhat related to your uncles comments…
When I came out of the closet to my parents (i think I was 19…37 minus 19…subtracts, borrows, brain farts…wow almost two decades ago), my mothers reaction was “so much for granchildren”. I know what I would say now , beginning with how selfish such a comment is when I sm talking about my life and trying to have an important discussion.
My fathers reaction: “putting something up your butt? Gross. Thats not right.”

The comments from your uncle and my father (and people everywhere, no doubt) bear strong similarities. The biggest being: a lack of significant exposure to members of the queer community. By that, I mean not just working with a lesbian or a trans*man, but actually getting to know them as people. For my father (and your uncle, going by your comments), the queer community may as well be on another continent for all that they comprehend. When a friend or family member comes out about their gender expression or their sexuality, if your response is to focus on their sex organs or sex acts, you are dehumanizing them.
. Sure that may not have been the intent…buuuuuut as we all know: Intent don’t mean shit cuz I ain’t a mindreader.
For the person coming out, such hurtful words can be extremely traumatic. I do not believe there is any one correct answer, but one that worked for my mother, (and from stories of other people there are more who agree):
The direct opposite of such dehumanizing words. Humanize them. Do not “other”them. We are, all of us, SO much more than our sexuality, gender identity, or sex organs. Yes, those facets do play a strong role in the lives of many, but to reduce me down to “oooh he takes it up the butt”, or to reduce Cerberus to “you chopped off your dick and balls”, serves to do nothing more than display the sheer lack of comprehension on the part of the subject. My father, your uncle…their understanding on these subjects is incredibly limited. So much so that a sexual context is the easiest way for them to comprehend what they’ve been told.
Why?
We have upset their cart.
We have shown them that the world has much more depth and more nuace than they knew. We have shown them that their personal experiences are not the gold standard of the 7+billion people on this planet.
To make matters worse, because of their privilege, it can be hard to see the box they are inside, let alone step out of it.
The attempts by my father and your uncle amount to them trying to determine reality, rather than seeing that there is so much more out there.

***short, slightly divergent tale ahead***
When I met my roomie E ,11 years ago, I learned he liked bears pretty quickly (in the queer community bears are a specific subset of men who are heavy set and/or stocky-sometimes, but not always, accompanied by muscle-what many would consider “fat”**, but not overweight–those are chubs). At first my reaction was the DEEPLY INSULTING AND DISMISSIVE “ick, you like fat guys?” To my credit, I never said there was anything wrong with him for liking bigger men; I revognized that he was/is fine the way he is. I just did not follow that train back to the station. Once I did, I came to the realization of “DAMN! It does not matter what I do or do not like. This is E’s life. What he is attracted has a bearing on him, not me. Once that happened, I stopped questioning the ‘why’ of it, and simply accepted his tastes for what they were: HIS tastes***
**
Thanks to growing awareness bc of FtB, I dislike using the term to describe people. The word is loaded with negativity. Is there another word that is considered an acceptable substitute?
***
It took lurking and reading here before I ditched the subconscious ableism that I retained WRT to overweight individuals. I finally understood that my difficulty trying to understand E’s tastes (as if there is some formula for figuring out why one person is attracted to another) was MY problem because I was thinking that being overweight was a sign that something was wrong with them. Though I hated that I ever felt that way, it was liberating being able to ditch my bigoted judgements. I know that helped me realize something that Cerberus’ uncle may not understand yet: the world is filled with many wonderful people, places, things and ideas. Given our limited time on this planet, combined with the sheer volume of information humanity has discovered–how in the world can I homestly think I can understand the world through my extremely subjective experience? I do not need to try and discover why E likes bears. He has discussed over the years his own theories and I simply listen.
Cerberus:
There is much your uncle could stand to learn. However, as with my situation with E, he does not need to understand intimate aspects of your life. If you choose to share knowledge with him, then he benefits. Seeing as you are under no obligation to play 20 questions to satisfy anyones curiosity, IMO his best bet is to accept one thing:
Though there is much in this world that we will never understand, when it comes to our family and friends treating them with love and acceptance is far more important than having the answer to “how can you handle having a dick in your ass?”

See the humanity in others.
Laugh when they laugh.
Love when they love.
Cry when they cry.
Give that shoulder to cry on.
Be that ear for a rant.

My father discovered that he does not need to understand my sexuality to treat me as his son an individual with experiences uniquely my own, but no more or less deserving of bein treated as a person than anyone else.

Cereberus-
I hope that one day your uncle will understand that he may never understand what it is like to feel that your sex organs at birth do not match your personal concept of gender.
He does not need to understand that to empathize with you.
He does not need to understand that to accept you
He just needs to treat you as a human being deserving of his love and support.
After all, there is nothing wrong with you.

Thanks folks, but I should be clearer: it’s a migraine that only features the visual aura but not the headache. Linky It’s actually quite pretty and is only a problem if I’m trying do something that requires acute vision. This time it was pretty bad, I had to stop working until it passed, If I’d been driving I would have had to stop.

So I’ve been hearing about your last few conversations with Uncle. Boy, have you dug yourself into a shithole. Let’s recap: so far in 2013 you’ve torpedoed your career, alienated your uncle, and sent your mom into therapy. Well done.

I firmly believe in second chances, and taking responsibility for your actions. If you think your life is heading in the right direction then by all means – tally ho! But if you see it as the train wreck it’s become, and you maybe want to talk, let me know. I’ll be in Location next week and we can meet up. But just you, no Partner (one piece of free advice: she’s your Iago, and best you realized this before you wake up and wonder where all the blood came from).

Also, “talk” in this context doesn’t mean you get to tell me how you’re “transgender” (which is bullshit) or how all your problems are caused by external forces (double bullshit) or that studies show blah blah blah. This is the kind of talk where you get told to man up, and how I might help. Just so we’re clear.
Cerberus, your mom and I love you very much. It’s time you decided to love yourself as well.
You know how to reach me.

Dad

Cause you know what I need when I’m being discriminated out of a job and I’m not sure if I’ll be able to afford rent in a few months? This fucking ignorant, victim-blaming horseshit. I don’t think I’m even going to bother responding to this, because my response would just be an unending stream of constant and unyielding venom.

Fuck. I think I just got disowned by my parents. Can life stop kicking me in the balls now? I’d really really fucking appreciate it.

Cerberus
Shit, fuck, I’m sorry.
I have nothing clever to say, I can just offer my e-hugs and sympathy.
And for your partner, too.
I mean it. If she knows you’re writing here, please pass it along.
I hope that your parents can realize that it’s their choice to accept that they have a daughter or lose a child, if that is what you wish for.

Nick
I think your reaction was great.
I usually manage nothing in such situations. My jaw drops, tears shoot to my eyes and then, some 5 minutes later I come up with some clever response.

Also, echo to what the other parents here have said.
I guess the best we can do is to be better parents, siblings, aunts, uncles or 4th cousins.
But I also understand that it fucking hurts to have your own parents say such things.
You might remember that my own mum disowned my for a while last year and damn that hurt and it’s not something I’ll ever forgive or forget.
But it’s also important to remember that while they can disown you, they cannot make you come back.

Cerberus, I’m so sorry. That’s so awful I can’t even begin to think – I wish your dad was not being such a shit. I don’t understand how any parent could treat their child that way.
.
Nick, your reaction was spot on – and all the more eloquent for being instant and completely spontaneous. At least these people have had the experience of seeing that someone they saw (I’m guessing) as “one of us” in terms of social demographic could so completely and viscerally reject this crap.

Thanks for all the pats on the back, folks! Now I think about it, Hitler-fanboi’s wife had more than once pushed the conversation in the direction of racial or social bigotry. For all I know, they’re fully paid-up Nazis.

Cerberus
I offer you some ragey animals.
I’m so sorry. And fuck them. And wow. *hugs* if you want, for you and Partner, and just… moral support all the way.
(I would also say don’t go to that meeting with your dad, because that kind of ‘talk’ is about the last thing you need, but that’s just my opinion.)

I hope I manage to be a better parent/relative.

Nick
*thumbs up* for that reaction. Sometimes actions speak far louder than words, and your combination of both, I think, was perfect for the situation.

mildlymagnificent
I think I forgot to hand out some *hugs* and *cheers* for you and mr magnificent yesterday!! ♥ for you!

79% of Americans think the team name “Redskins” is perfectly fine and shouldn’t be changed. It’s all about tradition. They’ve had that name forever.

How many Americans would think a team name “Wetbacks” or “Negroes” or something like that wouldn’t be offensive? Huh?! How many of those 79% of Americans were Native Americans? What’s the percentage of Native Americans who think the team name is fine?

“Right. When you will be only a little older, you will doubtless learn the advantage of minding your own business. If you will be so good as to turn your head slightly to the left, you will see the door. I wish you good-afternoon.”
– one of W. Somerset Maugham’s novel characters

…because that’s it: he’s interfering with your… your person.

Wait, whoa, he actually said “friend”. “No one else would seek to be your friend”?!

I missed that on my first few readings.

So did I.

1. His reaction looks to an outsider very much like the eleven year old who’s finally put it all together about what sex really involves and that the parents do this icky thing. Ewwww!!

Yeah. His knowledge of the whole thing definitely sounds like it’s at the level of an 11-year-old.

2. As for Partner stepping in. I’d point out to uncle that partner had to step in because they saw that you were a bit overwhelmed by his statements and was helping you by giving you the chance to catch your breath/ hold your temper/ not get too upset. That’s what good partners do.

Exactly.

That turned out longer than I intended. But then some of my heartfelt messages justcome out that way.

+ 1

Cerberus, I’m so sorry. That’s so awful I can’t even begin to think – I wish your dad was not being such a shit. I don’t understand how any parent could treat their child that way.

Oh, I can at some level. They wanted – not a child, but specifically a son who would perfectly conform to all their expectations, perhaps even exceed them, and now it turns out their expectations were not merely completely silly, but deeply harmful. Mom goes into shock, dad goes into almost violent denial, uncle grabs some kind of long sword and flails it about at random, screaming incoherently, having a panic attack in primordial fear of castration (he Feels The Male Pain).

I so hope your dad can get out of his denial. I so hope somebody can get through to him and get him to educate himself.

*restocks Portia’s hug truck*

Nick, your reaction was spot on – and all the more eloquent for being instant and completely spontaneous. At least these people have had the experience of seeing that someone they saw (I’m guessing) as “one of us” in terms of social demographic could so completely and viscerally reject this crap.

I shouldn’t have been so cryptic. I’ve done a analysis, such as it is, on Da Lounge Music’s ™ five bar starter section. Anyone interested can see what I think the harmonies are, though much of is ambiguous and open to interpretation.

FossilFishy
Well, I won’t fail you, at least. I’m harmony-illiterate, when it comes to analysis. “Sounds good to me!” really does sound good to me… Experimentation? Sure! Modern music! Dissonance? I thought it was supposed to be that way. I don’t fail people for being creative.
I was a bit disappointed, though. I expected my musical mail to sing (but oh boy, refreshing that old musical knowledge, and this whole harmony stuff is a real workout because, as I said, my theory stopped at basic theory, I have no actual harmony learning to speak of, besides what I’ve read on the page).
Oh, and fuck traditional harmonic composition. This is the Lounge, making music. If we were any kind of traditional harmonic composition, we’d never, ever be popular. ;)

FossilFishy
Right on, cowboy! None of this fancy-pants educated crap, if it sounds good, we do it! Yeah! *wild highland dancing accompanied by erratic drums and an off-key cello*
Ok, that may not be exactly what I meant, but… :)

I got a question that, I think, is uniquely suited to the diversity of The Horde™

I’m in the process of designing a board game to play with my 9 year old daughter and her friends. It is a cooperative game; in which the players are trying to rescue a character that has been kidnapped and locked in a tower (ala Rapunzel) They get bonus points for stopping the kidnapper before they escape.

Here is my problem. The character that gets kidnapped will be randomly selected from the pile of player character cards and so could be any gender presenting (including None). I’m looking for an alternative to the whole “damsel in distress” but am having trouble coming up with a fairy tale appropriate antomyn for “damsel”.

Each character card will have a backstory and I’m wanting to be as inclusive as possible. My dream is to create a game that is not only fun to play but that also reinforces my view that people are people, they are not their genitals, not their skin color, not who they love, etc.

I will most likely be posting the character stories here for review also, if noone has any objection. I have learned so much about my own biases, prejudices, blindspots, etc from the Horde so I value ya’lls opinion regarding such things.

Sorry for long (and most likely disjointed) post. I’m currently on Vicodin for my surgery from yesterday, so I hope the above makes sense.

I think we all need to write a “wake up” letter to President Obama concerning emergency contraception (Plan B):

On Wednesday night, President Barack Obama’s administration indicated that is challenging an April court decision that would make emergency contraception available to everyone without a prescription. The announcement means that, after a decade of fighting between reproductive rights advocates and the Food and Drug Administration over this issue, there’s still no resolution. …

The administration’s latest position seems to be that lowering the age to 15 is a compromise. Yes, it is two years younger than the previous limit, and the FDA’s new guidelines would also mean Plan B is now available on the shelf and not only during pharmacy hours. But it still means that women will need to have some manner of government-issued ID to obtain it. Not every woman has that sort of ID—especially 15- and 16-year-olds that can’t yet drive and don’t have a passport, or simply don’t want to have a cashier know their names….

Rorschach @393:
I haven’t played “The Walking Dead” (but would love to). Looks pretty intense for younger audiences. I have played “Last night on earth” and it was great. Still pretty violent, so I’m waiting until my daughter is 10 or 11 before playing it with her. Check out “Fluxx” (Star Fluxx, Cthulu Fluxx, etc) they are great family games.

Dianne @395:
Thanks. It will be awhile before i post anything. It’s still in the conceptual stages. I’m sure I will make a lot of mistakes regarding how I handle the characters stories/ graphics/descriptions. This will probably highlight any of my unknown misconceptions/biases or whatever. I hope to learn how to be more sensitive to others in addition to making a fun and “enlightening” game. So many games use tired old tropes such as the dashing prince saving the pretty princess, I want something better. A board game+, if you will. :-)

welcome back, Blacksmith, and good luck with crafting your boardgame. Are you planning to hand-make a single copy, or maybe go Creative Commons with it? Some games that started out as hobbies have become big, y’know… and there’d likely be a market, or at least a community, for a gender-inclusive adventure game.

Cerberus, I feel like anything I can say will pale in the face of what you’re dealing with. I’m really sorry. The only plus is that at least your dad didn’t decide to ambush you. “Nice” of him to be up front about what he thinks “talking” is. As disgusting as his attitude is.
*beepbeepbeep* Backing up the hugtruck that David so kindly filled up for you.

Blacksmith:
Perhaps you could subvert the damsel in distress theme in some way. The image of a woman trapped in a tower cowering in fear in the corner as the guards bring her lunch can become the inventive woman who GOT herself captured to test her skill at escaping trouble (I picture her as a child who could free herself from pretty much anything–as she gets older she craves more challenges and begins to study human psychology so she can avoid ‘psychological traps’ as well). She could have been careless and gotten captured. Or she could have wanted to be captured. I see her as a skilled manipulator-not in a seductress way-but from a behavioral standpoint. Or, heck, you could get to the end of the story, have her knight reach the tower, only to find it empty. Save one little note: “Dear Knight, if you are reading this I got tired of waiting around for you. Perhaps saving helpless women simply is not your forte. This may be the time to switch your chosen profession.”
Or it could be a game between two siblings with the twist that they are trying to acquire something stolen from their family and kept in a towering fortress somewhere (with a moat!), a near impregnable structure that few have broken into and none have escaped. She gets herself captured to get in the city, while he faces a gauntlet of challenges in a more direct “break into the city without bringing an army on top of him” kinda way.

Hmmm, now that I think of it, I have no idea how to fit any of that into a board game. It works in a format designed for storytelling. Though I do not have much skill writing stories, If I were a writer, I would love to tackle various genre cliches and sexist stereotypes.

Today I went to a protest in London in support of Bani, a lesbian woman asylum-seeker who is facing deportation to The Gambia. The Home Office and the Tribunal refused to believe that she was a lesbian, and she is going to be deported tomorrow, despite the fact that she’s made a fresh asylum claim with new evidence. We protested outside the London offices of the airline, Royal Air Maroc, in the hope that they will refuse to fly her (something which has happened before with deportation charter flights). What’s happening to her and other LGBT asylum-seekers is completely horrifying.

In other news, I came home to find that UKIP, a right-wing party which campaigned on a disturbingly racist and xenophobic platform, is celebrating success in the English local elections. :( Watching the news was a depressing experience this evening. I think the low point was when a voter interviewed in Wisbech, having been asked why he voted UKIP, said “Well, I don’t want to sound racist, but it’s this foreign influx…” (Pro-tip: if you have to begin your remarks by assuring people that you’re not being racist, then it’s a safe bet that you are, in fact, being racist.) Also, a lengthy interview with Nigel Farage (leader of UKIP), in which he railed against the spending of tax money on diversity training and interpreters, and described parts of Peterborough as “a ghetto”. Every other word he said was a racist dog-whistle. I am not kidding.

Walton
Although I’m a yank, our immigration policies are at least equally shameful and appalling. As far as I’m concerned, the citizenship application (asylum-seekers or not) should basically consist of :
1)Name?
2)Do you want to be a citizen?
3)Are you currently wanted in connection with a violent crime anywhere?
3a)If the answer is yes, but you feel there are extenuating circumstances, let us know.

Assuming that the answers the 2 and 3 are yes and no respectively, I see no reason why someone shouldn’t be granted citizenship of wherever the hell they feel like, for pretty much any reason or none.

Blacksmith:
Oops, I see you do not want the “daring prince saves the princess” story*. Back to the drawing board.

*another way to shatter that stereotype is to have knight/prince/whomever completely disinterested in the princess (and I would not have the guy be gay. Perhaps he just loves money. Or maybe he is an adventurer who came home to find his family dead, and his town burned to the ground–with no clue how it happened. With no options, hefinds himself taking on risky jobs in the hopes that he can die as he lived. Of course he is so good, having trained for so many years that it is hard to find anyone who can match his skill at X.) or set the story up so there is no damned “have my daughters hand in marriage. Consent? Bah! She is my daughter to do with as I please.” bullshit.

Ye Olde Blacksmith: It occurs to me that the “knight” archetype could use some subverting as well. Perhaps the knight is rescuing people because he is able to due to his strength, training, and privileged position of not having to work for a living so he does it as a calling, without expecting or wanting a “reward” (especially not a sexual reward) from the damsel. Maybe he’s looking for a prince to rescue and receive gratitude from. Maybe she’s hoping to meet someone who will accept her for herself and is questing to find that person. Maybe he’s doing it because he secretly hopes that the dragon or whatever will win because he’s tired of life but thinks it unethical to commit suicide. (That might be a bit dark for a game that 10 year olds are going to play.) In short, no reason why the knight has to be a boring stereotype either.

Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaidensays

So, from that thread where the classic Brownian post exists, we also find

Gregory Greenwood:

should you somehow eliminate all sources of Red Shirt slaughter other than Storm Troope blaster fire, then we have a problem of the unstoppable force/immoveable object variety. Since they can’t ‘pass through each other’, so to speak, then you would probably end up with some kind of paradox, and science fiction teaches us that unavoidable paradoxes are very, very, universe-obliteratingly bad things…

Or, rather, we have a problem of the ignorable force, unstartable object variety.

===========
@Og – You’re broken in exactly the wonderful ways that would make me love to hang out with you, anywhere, and a whole bunch of times (I reserve times around finals and the occasional responsibility to my kids that Ms Crip Dyke cannot cover).

============

@Cerberus:
I join too late to be of much use, but I’m here with the internet chocolatezzz. I always have internet chocolatezzz.

============
@Beatrice, 288:

Just because you came out to him as trans doesn’t justify him suddenly asking for facts about your sex life or the exact state of your genitals.

You’re plainly correct, but there’s nothing unique in C’s uncle doing this. It is an all too common problem. There’s

1) no conception that SRS is creative not destructive,

but more frustratingly,
2) more concern for an endangered (or perceived to be endangered) penis than there is for human beings – attached or unattached to penises – all over the world:

“What? Some poor penis is threatened? We must intervene as a community and pass laws, write insurance policies, chain ourselves to clinic doors!

I’m sorry, did you say that 100,000 have been killed in Rwanda? My! That’s tantamount to genocide! Call me back when we hit half a mil’.”

I would say that what is similar in C’s uncle’s reaction and your dad’s reaction is not the lack of exposure to queer perspectives (though that may or may not be true), but instead what I call the “public ownership of masculinity”.

Masculinity is a valuable, valuable thing that must be defended at all costs. When an MtF trans person considers surgery, the threat to masculinity – and men’s communal and public ownership of same – justifies intervention limiting personal autonomy for the greater good of masculinity everywhere.

When a queer guy considers *receptive* anal intercourse, the threat to masculinity – and men’s communal and public ownership of same – justifies intervention limiting personal autonomy for the greater good of masculinity everywhere.

Dalilama: Sounds a bit like my idea for citizenship. I was a little more hard core about it, probably due to being a US-American. Anyway, my idea went like this: Any person who shows up on your country’s doorstep and doesn’t have any outstanding warrants against them or any history of violent crimes automatically is in. If they do have either, they apply for entry, with the basic assumption of the country being that a lot of dictatorships are likely to trump up charges against people who leave just to make life difficult for them, i.e. most of the charges will be determined to be BS and most people will end up staying. Passing the entry exam gets you permission to stay for 5 years.

At the end of the five years, the situation is reviewed. If the person wants to stay, either as a permanent resident or citizen and they have not come to the negative attention of the government in their five year preliminary time (committing a crime, etc) then they’re in. If they have gotten into trouble, the case is reviewed and most people will be accepted, unless there is evidence of major violent tendencies or commission of serious white collar crimes (i.e. selling toys as mine detectors, tax evasion of >$1 million, etc.) Serious violence or corruption may get one shown the door or if there is some extenuating circumstance, could result in a new 5 year trial period in the country.

Too complicated and/or easily corrupted?

Crip Dyke, Right Reverend Feminist FuckToy of Death & Her Handmaidensays

The knight doesn’t have to be a man. Maybe it’s a woman looking for all the same things above – or she wants to rescue the prince. Or she’s looking for her lost dog and stumbles into an adventure. Or she’s trying to make a living to feed the children at home. Or it’s her husband who owes the King (or the Dragon?) way too much money and she’s here to free him from debt and chains.
I liked the idea of siblings/friends searching for something stolen or lost that is locked away in the tower. Kind of brings home the idea of damsel-as-object, really…
The note idea would be fun, too. I have no idea how these things work into a board game, though – maybe there can be alternate endings? One player’s card is the character to be rescued, but there is a second card that determines what that character does – waits around helplessly, manages their own escape, traps the rescuer in a devilish plan to gain the reward for themselves, etc. [/throwing out ideas]

Or it’s her husband who owes the King (or the Dragon?) way too much money and she’s here to free him from debt and chains.

Makes me think of one version of an old Scottish folk song, in which Geordie Gordon is arrested for murder (the song claims it was a frame up) and sentenced to death, whereupon Lady Gordon gather up all the Gordon retainers and goes to Edinburgh to plead for her husbands life, offering to pay any ransom for him. The king initially refuses, until his advisor notes ho many retainers she’d brought and how heavily armed they were, and recommended that he set a large fine and let Geordie go. Once she has him back, she explicitly states that the next option if the offer of a bribe failed would have been starting a civil war on the spot.

Wife has found out that her infection is MRSA (Methicillin-resistant Staphylococcus aureus). Oh, joy and happiness unforeseen! Luckily, the first doctor she saw (last Sunday (your Sunday (you calendarist oppressors!))) started her on Bactrim, not a penicillin, so she has had the right antibiotic the whole time. Last night, they cleaned and redressed the wound, pulled all of

TRIGGER WARNING FOR MEDICAL ICKYNESS

pulled all of the wicking gauze tape out of her abscess and put in about 30cm of new wicking gauze tape

TRIGGER WARNING ENDS

and we go back on Saturday afternoon to do it again. This shit is scary.

re: the ballad I mentioned above, for those who are curious it’s Child 209. I’d post a link to a performance, but I can’t find one, only the other version of the same name, in which the titular Geordie is hanged for poaching because his wife didn’t think to bring a horde of armed retainers with her when she went to plead for his life.

Dalillama
Sounds like a true story, and then someone changed the ending to make it happier for Geordie. :) I like old ballads like that. Historically true, except where not. oooOOOoooo…

Ogvorbis
Best wishes for Wife’s speedy recovery.
Bactrim is the go-to antibiotic (sort of a pre-antibiotic antibiotic) here, it’s usually the first line of defense whenever the children don’t automatically get over [ailment of the moment], to make sure things don’t progress.
Didn’t know they gave it to adults as well!

rq
The two songs are actually only tangentially related. The first is a Scottish song, in which Geordie is an aristocrat (possibly the Earl of Huntley, who was charged with a capital crime but freed after a fine was paid in 1554) who was framed for murder, while the second is an English song about a commoner (or possibly a noble bastard) who was guilty of poaching. In any case, the Scottish version predates the English one by a significant margin, and may well be a reasonably accurate depiction of how Huntley was charged and then freed.

I have the vague sense the was a really good blog post from someone, a few months ago, about why playing Devil’s Advocate, especially with social justice issues, is shitty. I don’t remember who by or what the title was. Anyone know?

Ogvorbis, sadz for wife, too. Yuck, do not wantz. Hope she get well soon.

Otherwise, I’ve read everything, but have no time to write. So, “hi all”. Back to not getting anything I want done at work due to constant interruptions of others apparently determined to not allow me to accomplish anything significant this week. Hug, chocolate, etc for those that want it.

The Prisoner in the Tower (classic)
The Imprisoned (for mystery)
The Entrapped (I have a soft spot for words beginning with en-)
The Figure in the Tower (again, mystery)
The Prisoner (classic, references British TV show)
The Lost Royal (only workable if you’re not also doing a variety of economic backgrounds)
The Kidnapped (for direct bluntness)
Person in Distress (reinforces gender neutrality)
The Captive (swashbuckley but maybe not fairy tale enough)
The Person Trapped in the Tower (overly literal, perhaps)
Your Captive Comrade (again might be too modern and limits story options, but I like the alliteration)

I’ll keep thinking and see if I come up with anything more helpful. I really like your board game concept and if I’m at all able to, I’ll throw you some bucks when you decide to kickstart it!

A bunch of gun nuts (as opposed to a bunch of regular owners/users of guns) is planning to march on D.C. with loaded weapons:

Libertarian activist and radio host Adam Kokesh is hoping to get 1,000 people to march on Washington on July 4 — armed with loaded rifles. The plan, launched with a Facebook group today, is to gather on the Virginia side of the Potomac, where gun laws are lax, and then march across the bridge with loaded rifles slung over their shoulders into the District, where openly carrying weapons is generally prohibited.

“This will be a non-violent event,” the Facebook group warns, “unless the government chooses to make it violent.” Already, over 200 people have said they’ll attend the march. Here’s the message:

On the morning of July 4, 2013, Independence Day, we will muster at the National Cemetery & at noon we will step off to march across the Memorial Bridge, down Independence Avenue, around the Capitol, the Supreme Court, & the White House, then peacefully return to Virginia across the Memorial Bridge. This is an act of civil disobedience, not a permitted event. We will march with rifles loaded & slung across our backs to put the government on notice that we will not be intimidated & cower in submission to tyranny. We are marching to mark the high water mark of government & to turn the tide. This will be a non-violent event, unless the government chooses to make it violent. Should we meet physical resistance, we will peacefully turn back, having shown that free people are not welcome in Washington, & returning with the resolve that the politicians, bureaucrats, & enforcers of the federal government will not be welcome in the land of the free.

…Bishop Thomas Tobin issued a pastoral letter to his brothers and sisters in the Ocean State suggesting they might want to decline invitations once same-sex marriage becomes official in August. “It is important to affirm the teaching of the Church, based on God’s word, that ‘homosexual acts are intrinsically disordered,’ (Catechism of the Catholic Church, #2357),” he writes, “and always sinful. And because ‘same-sex marriages’ are clearly contrary to God’s plan for the human family, and therefore objectively sinful, Catholics should examine their consciences very carefully before deciding whether or not to endorse same-sex relationships or attend same-sex ceremonies, realizing that to do so might harm their relationship with God and cause significant scandal to others.”…

Had work today. Taught the most blue I’ve ever done it, but I must have done a great job because the teacher said I was very enthusiastic and the best teacher they’ve ever had at my employing company. I almost ended up crying, because it’s about the 7th or 8th teacher who’s said the exact same thing and I don’t know of any other teacher at my workplace who’s even gotten that once and well, even with all that, it doesn’t fucking matter, because all my employer can see is my gender performance.

So they use their bigotry and try to enforce gender compliance with discrimination and then people like my dad or my uncle then use that discrimination and backlash due to bigotry to enforce their own bigotry and justify unnecessary cruelties. It’s like a giant cycle of why bigotry exists. X minority group is beaten down if they stand up for themselves and try and exist like a human being by one set of bigots and then fence-sitting wankers see that and use it to justify their own bigotries because “well, gosh, you’re not accomplishing the same as dominant group would be, it must be because you suck or your minority status makes you suck.”

It’s annoying as fuck and it’s even more annoying that the only way to fix it is for minority members to stand up, be repeatedly punched down, until enough have stood up that people start having to check their impulse to punch down and treat them slightly more like humans and thus allow more minority group members to stand up and be visible.

And it’d be fucking nice if minority members didn’t always have to go through the trial by fire stages just to get to a world where they are allowed to exist and slowly be treated like full human beings. But then, I guess they wouldn’t call it oppression if it was pleasant.

@397 I made some comments about the availability of “Plan B” drugs, and I suggested we pressure Obama to change his mind about availability. However, I was not taking into account the cogent lame arguments offered on Fox News. This argument can be boiled down to the claim that Plan B drugs will be used to “cover up rapes.”

They might be wrong about that, since forensic evidence of rape does not depend on the victim being impregnated, nor on the victim taking Plan B drugs to prevent pregnancy.

The second, and, of course, indisputable argument from Fox News is that Plan B will be a “boon for creepy uncles.” Ummm, they should know, I guess.

Thanks for replying and I apologize for my tone as all of this was dumped very quickly on me. While you may have realized something was off as a kid you never expressed it. Hence confusion by family.

I saw by your e-mail reply you took a lot of time explaining things. That helped me understand where you are at and plan to go.

As a kid you loved to ham it up for photo’s and that appeared to change when you reached High School. Which is about normal for anyone. As a child you were very happy, liked Winnie the Pooh and transformers.

This was a grand reply and I hope you also put this much effort into finding a career. You have many hopes for your future and a career will help you to achieve them. Partner graduated and landed a full time job with benefits. Regardless of who you were or who you desire to be we would all like to see you start a career and become self sufficient. You have many emotional things on your plate and need to set them aside to get a career going. It is great hearing Partner discuss her job and co-workers and hopefully you will be able to do the same soon.

As we age medical things being to occur. That is why having a career with benefits is necessary. You have no full time job or medical coverage so you haven’t checked with any medical professionals regarding your present health and future plans. When able to yearly medical, eye and teeth exams should be obtained.

Thanks once again to reply to my e-mail (including parts that ranted – I had no idea where things came from and it showed).

Best Regards,

Uncle

Given the exceedingly low bar set by my Dad, I’m going to remain cautiously optimistic that there might be something vaguely salvageable from this relationship at least.

And since I can’t avoid snark, yes, suddenly after puberty I just didn’t seem as happy and avoided pictoral evidence… not suspicious at all, nope. Also, oi, save us from middle class people from easier economic climates assuming that “getting a career” is half as easy now as it used to be.

Pteryxx @ 403:
My plan, at the moment, is to just do one hand-made. After playtesting it with family and friends and refining it, maybe try to do a release. I agree that there is probably a market for such a game, but I don’t want to get ahead of myself. (I am getting excited at the possibilities, though.)

———————————-

Ogvorbis
*Hugs and tasty things* for you and your wife. Best wishes to you both.

———————————-Tony! & Dianne & Cerberus
Thanks for your ideas and thoughts. Those are all great. Keep’em coming. Since this game is still in its conceptual infancy, any feedback is useful.

———————————-
Here is a rough example of how I see the game working, roughly, sort-of, for now. :) (If anyone is familiar with “Arkham Horror”, I’ll be ripping off much of the mechanics from that game.)

Players choose which character they want to play. Each character will have stats, advantages, disadvantages, etc.

From the remaining pile of character cards, one is randomly chosen and placed in… “The Tower”. *dun-dun-dun!* The objective is to work together to rescue the character from the tower with bonus points for capturing the villain before he/she/it escapes. The villian will be randomly chosen from a villian pile. Each villian has different abilities that can effect the game.

The players will move around a board similar to “Clue” and defeat monsters, solve riddles, overcome obstacles. Still working on specifics.

Some of the characters I have in mind would be:

– Queen Zinnia: The beloved queen of the land. She is capable, smart and blind. She starts with a -1 to her movement rate. However, all of her perception checks are at +2.

– King Roland: Wise and thoughful, but the years of wearing a crown has taken its toll. He can’t fight or jump around as he once did, but his mind is sharper than ever.

– Princess Buttermug: Next in line for the throne. She can be a bit snarky and shortsighted but is very spirited and fiesty. Bonus to movement and combat.

– Prince Erick: Buttermug’s younger brother. He is in love with Derek the Stablemaster so if one is in the tower, the other gets bonuses to play.

– Derek the Stablemaster: Master horseman and is in love with Erick. Bonuses if Erick is in the tower.

– Carlita, Captain of the Guard: (Haven’t figured out how to best describe Carlita. She is a transgender woman that kicks ass. I’ll need a lot of help here. I’m very inexperienced with this particular issue.)

– Mosimmo the Scribe: (still working him out too. He is a transgender man with major bonuses to spellcasting.)

– More characters in time…I also don’t have any of the villains figured out yet.

If anyone has ideas or thoughts, please share. I am open to everything (especially, my treatment of the characters. The whole point of sharing this with ya’ll is to educate myself on issues related to equality.)

I’m liking the characters so far. If you want help with the transgender captain of the guard I am a transwoman and have some background in fantasy stories and tropes so if you ever need help you can just leave a comment on my personal blog using an email addy in the comment space you’d like me to email you at. Only if you need it and feel comfortable of course.

chigau @440

I don’t fucking know. The irony is also that I currently have two jobs. I’m being discriminated out of one of them and still have the other which isn’t quite enough to pay the bills, but brings in some money. I also have another gig writing for Sadly, No! So, I think “job security” is like the security blanket he is circling back to because it’s something he feels more of an expert at than me so can feel he is supportively contributing from a position of strength. But it’s just speculation.

Given the shit with my Dad, my standards are pretty fucking low right now. Whatever comes, I’m definitely going to be going forward with a lot more self-protection and caution and given that I firmly believe being considered family is something EARNED not given by blood or “being present during childhood”, I’m also going to keep that firmly in mind and not kill myself to “chase their love”.

Either they’ll turn out to unconditionally support me or they’ll decide to sacrifice our connection to be unwitting pawns for toxic masculinity. And at the moment, I don’t fully give a shit which they choose.

It’s almost summer so I can sit outside.
In my neighbourhood over the last mumble years there have been musicians who practice so I can hear them.
There was the stunningly talented saxophonist across the street.
There was the awesome drummer two doors down.
.
.
On the other hand, there is a percussionist over the way who will make me go inside soon.
[It’s OK. I hafta make banana bread.]

My mommy is coming to see me!
She’s still about 3.5 hours away. Yaaaaay.

If I had any energy, I might try to tidy up.

But I don’t.

Yaaaay.

—-

Cerberus:
Uncle’s response is a lot more measured, which seems like a good step. Still lots of judgey undertones and patronizing overtones. Good luck and take care of yourself with regard to that relationship.

Cerberus – I’m so, so sorry about your dad. It sounds like your uncle is trying, insofar as he can right now. That really sucks, because once again it means that the person who is being hurt (you) is also the person who has to help support the other person just in order for them to see basic reason, but if that’s something you want to do, it might work on him (but I also agree to be careful and not let your guard down).

Nick, you did awesome. I hope to be as direct as that in encountering such things!

Cerberus
I am so sorry for what you’re being put through. Your Dad should be ashamed of himself. Your Uncle, is this progress?? He’s coming from a place of privilege and power. It must be so frustrating.
Everything I’ve read of yours shows me you are a very good person. A talented Teacher. (A job that is so important and so undervalued.) And you clearly take very great care of your loved ones.
I hope someday your relatives are able to see just what a wonderful addition you are to the world.

Ogvorbis: *surgery-quality sterile hugs* for you and Wife—and I feared it would be so. Look out; that stuff’ll come back on you! It also, in my experience, moves fast; we’ve experimentally determined that if it looks MRSA-licious on Friday evening, by Monday evening we’ll be at the clinic for abscess deflation.
Bactrim and Clindamycin (sp?) are what I’ve had for all my episodes of Fun With MRSA, and have done a bang-up job.

Potentially valuable tip: If typically you get your prescriptions filled at WalMart, then check the prices on the Bactrim elsewhere. Hereabouts, WalMart wants close on $100 for what another pharmacy (a member of some affiliation of small, mom-and-pop type pharmacies) charges $19. I shit you not. Not a one-time thing, either; I’ve had to have Bactrim 3 or 4 times, and every time it was the same bad deal. I’ve been told, how truthfully, I do not know, that WalMart does this sort of thing to offset the $4 prescriptions on generics.

This shit is scary.

Yes, indeedy! Also, potentially very expensive. We’ve only just finished paying off our Intro to MRSA (just in time to start paying on The Husband’s Evil Gall Bladder Removal! Yippee!)
–
Cerberus: Hurray for cause for cautious optimism, and may things get better from there. It sounds as if Uncle is at least trying, however inadequately and fumblingly.
–

Ogvorbis: Wishing your wife a speedy recovery. I work with cats, so I know quite well the joy of abscesses (though not personal-personal experience) and I hope she stays comfortable, recovers quickly, and in the future can laugh about the pimple from hell.

Cerberus: with permission (almost wrote persimmon. I’m tired) I would thoroughly love to whap your father upside the head. If no permission granted, then freely offered hugs and kitten snuggles.

Speaking of kittens, I am in caretaking of not just a Parsnip (who has continued to produce some poo every day) but also a Rosemary now. She is much more alert, inquisitive, playful and active. Compared to her, Parsnip seems a little dim. But that’s actually good because I’ve found the uh… slightly dumber… animals tend to make better pets/be happier/be nicer in the long run. Like my hydrocephalic puppy that was dumber than a rock, but the happiest, friendliest puppy on the planet EVAR. If he’d just stayed smaller, I would have kept the beast despite the fact he’d never be house trained.

Yeah ouch. My dad’s been an asshole like that too, but not nearly to such an extent. When I decided to tell him about being genderqueer, the first reaction was “You should check your genitals.”

And more recently, any attempts at getting anything across are met with “well don’t make life hard for yourself”, and “you were perfectly male as a child.” …as if puberty doesn’t have a way of making sex characteristics way more obvious*.

*and the worst part is the self-gaslighting. I’m not really gender-dysphoric, so it’s really easy to justify my trans-ish inclinations as a superficial wanting to be this way, never mind 1)That’s probably legitimate, and 2)It’s not really superficial if you keep coming back to it for over a year.

@thunk “perfectly male as a child” is a stupid way for your father to claim what your self identity should be. Behaviour wise, I would have been seen as “perfectly male as a child”, though I was born female and I identify as such as well. But I was stereotypically ‘a boy’ in my behaviours and likes/dislikes (hate/d shopping, hate/d shoes, hate/d makeup, hate/d dresses/skirts, hated just sitting and talking during recess, loved mud, loved frogs/snakes, would make little spears/bows/build teepees along the creek, loved to wrestle, etc etc).

Jesus Fuck, internet, is it necessary to beat the drum of “Asperger’s is no excuse” QUITE so loudly? Do people feel the need to constantly remind wheelchair users they’re supposed to just suck it up, too?

Good morning
Beads, what is it with beads?Where’s the Evo-Psych explenation for me liking shiny christal beads?

+++Ogvorbis
Big hugs to Wife

Cerberus
Continued hugs for you. I’m keeping my fingers crossed for your uncle coming around. Because as much as we like to claim that hey, they’re just relatives, it hurts.

Ye Olde Blacksmith
You could give the characters a special ability that only comes into play when the character is the captured one. So that charcter isn’t reduced to the passive Damsel in Distress but still has some agency to help the players on their mission.

Nick:
I thought Crip Dyke was speaking of a specific subset of heterosexual men-those that condemn homosexual anal sex, but engage in and/or enjoy viewing heterosexual anal sex. If indeed that is true (which CD may verify), do you still feel an assumption is being made?

****

Given the accusations of atheists being militant (seen recently in the Day of Reason thread), I am curious what a fundie tv documentary titled “When Atheists Attack!” would look like. What would they have to dishonestly clip together to make their -wholly unjustified- martyrdom claim appear valid?

This. the amount of straight porn with her taking it up her ass is huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge.
If you ask me it’s another one of those overlaps between misogyny and homophobia: Dudes getting fucked in the ass is gross because it makes them a woman.

On a related note, the manifestation of misogyny in the gay community is striking. I can see it much more clearly now that I have become aware of patriarchy and the pervasive sexism in the world. It can be seen-along with gender essentialism-in the ways so-called ‘masculine’ men treat those gay men who are deemed ‘effiminate’. That was another eye opener I had in recent years. Realizing that:
A- there is nothing wrong or shameful in being a woman
B- there is a lot of disdain in the gay community towards those gay men who do not conform to traditional gender roles (AND DAMN! fuck me sideways…it just occured to me that the same adherence to rigid gender roles may be true among lesbians. I do not know how many I have spoken with who talk about their attraction to ‘butch’ or ‘femme’ women.)
C- there is a lot of shame in the gay community directed at those of us who are the receptive sexual partners. This shame manifests internally AND externally.
D- gender roles are artificial constraints placed upon the members of society at an early age. Said constraints are often binary in nature (thanks again to those gender roles that recognize only men and women) and definitely shame those individuals who fail to conform

I came to understand that the shame I felt in being the receptive partner in sexual encounters stemmed from binary thing/rigid gender roles, which in turn stemmed from subconscious, sexist views I held (not that I no longer have any, but at least now it has become easier to recognize them in myself and I have the willingness to change)
****

I think I am going to enjoy reading Yemmy’s blog. Just a few days ago I was hoping FtB would find a female of color to join their ranks. That she is feminist, bisexual, atheist and proudly plus sized (though she does not mention it in her intro, I am curious to see if she will discuss ableism from time to time) adds a new diverse voice to the blogging collective here.

Sizeism and ableism share some features, but are not the same thing. There are some people who think of those who are overweight as disabled, but I would not lump (heh) the two together; there are many features of ableism that overweight people do not have to face, and I would be very uncomfortable with anyone saying that people who are overweight face the same difficulties as people who are disabled.

Once again I start my Lounge session with Parsnip and Rosemary and kitten toes… That’s the best way to go!

Round of *hugs*, more later – it’s second Latvian Independence Day today and Choir did an opening concert for a new cultural/arts centre that got a heck of a lot more money poured into it than it would have non-election year. That being said, it’s a wonderfully restored building, including access for everyone (still a rarity in this country).
And a giant playground and a watchtower.

And would posting new pictures of my garden be offensive to anyone? I would like to share, but also I don’t want to be, you know, an asshole about it to people who don’t have their own…

I have not triggered in a week. In over a week. I have only had one 9/11 dream. No scout dreams. And my mind being so intent on messing with itself, I am scared that the lack of triggering will only mean a bigger trigger down the road. My mind is so good with fucking itself over.

Giliell
I like that idea. I was planning on some characters having bonuses based on who is trapped (See Erick/Derek, ach I’ll have to change one of their names now that I’ve seen them written together.) Maybe, they will have bonuses during the endgame of capturing the villain. Hmmm… much to think about. :)

One of the reasons that I want to make the trapped character be random is to subtly reinforce the idea that bad things can happen to people through no fault of their own.

I think I have the proto-gameboard mapped out. Next step, flesh out the characters, their stats, and their backstories.

WMDKitty, your sister and her husband’s film looks really incredible. Thank you for linking to their Kickstarter.

*

Yay! for Ogvorbis!

*

Portia, I’m glad your mom was able to make it after all!

*

Cerberus, as others have said, I’m so sorry you’re having to deal with such ignorance and downright cruelty from family members (as well as your employers). It seems like your uncle betrayed your trust in telling your father what he did. Is that right or am I misunderstanding something? *hugs*

*rq:

I don’t have a yard. Not even a balcony. I wanna see the pics! I’ll live vicariously through you. Of course, if someone else would prefer you didn’t link to them, I guess you can always email them to me :).

*

I missed the annual yellow rubber ducky river race outside my window :(. Thousands (okay, probably less than a thousand, but I’m almost sure it’s more than 500) of duckies enter. Few will make it to the finish line (many of them get stuck on rocks)! One will win their buyer glorious riches!

The following is a shameless plug, and I hope I’m not violating any rules by posting it. If I am, I will apologize and ever after cease and desist.

I do a blog entitled “Grumbles From an Old Grouch” in which I pontificate on politics, mythology and life in general. My posts range from “The Theory of Evil-ution vs The Myth-ology of Creationism” to the “Tea Potty” series (a ballsy hiss-story of the “baggers” and other loony tune movements) to journalism (There Are Not Two Sides To Every Story!).

I do the blog with a plethora of facts and links and a modicum of humor to make the medicine go down. (Well, at least I THINK it’s funny.) I’m a single retiree and I don’t have ads or a budget so this is my modest way of getting the word out.

Anyway, I invite you to check it out and see what you think. If you like it (and I hope you do) help me spread the word, give me your valuable feedback or perhaps “like” Grouchy’s Grumbles of FB.

Parrowing (and anyone else interested):Here it is, then – the last week-and-a-half in the garden (and environs)!
Trigger Warning for dead bird (but no gore, I hope it hit our window because I don’t want to believe that Cat is so dextrous that he must be kept inside).
Also warning for insect sex and plant sex. And a giant hovering bumble-bee.

Why are they torturing me like this? Why can’t JJ Abrams just direct some other franchise to death? Why does it have to be Star Trek?

As to “Shakespearean”, we already had that, he was called Ricardo Montalban. And blonde females in short skirts with not much text was already done in the 60s too, and sucked then.

I will watch this “Into Darkness” movie on my flight to Europe next month I have decided, but only because it gives me something to do and swear at while drinking too much. I will certainly not watch it in a movie theater.
There is a German word for this whole project, “Leichenfledderei”. Picking the valuables of a dead person.

Everytime I see this Quinto guy impersonate Leonard Nimoy, I die a little on the inside.

rorschach
What bothers me about current-Spock is that he’s waaaay too big-boned to ‘become’ Leonard Nimoy later on. There’s just no way those heavy bones will shrink and become delicate enough to be the Real Spock.
And Young Jim is a bit too all-American for my tastes, although one of my friends just salivates at the thought of another Star Trek – and she’s not normaly a sci-fi fan. *shrug*

Well he drives Corvettes(in the 23rd century) and is seen not infrequently with more than one female so there’s that, but to be really all-American he would need to own one or more handguns for one, handguns that he would not be able to unlock were they to be secured with say simple mathematical equations, and he would have to believe in the rapture and be skeptical of climate change more times than not.

My main concern was whether it was best to mention it here or the Thunderdome. I know that not everyone in the lounge is necessarily excited to fight trolls, (and I respect that). But the Thunderdome has it’s own population of trolls to take care of.

Great photos, rq! The pictures of the insects came out really well and the hyacinths reminded me of home :)! I loved the tulips and those beetles sure seemed like they felt right at home! The garden looks fantastic! !!

And as far as the glorious riches go, I would guess that first prize is somewhere between a brand new TV and dinner for two at the restaurant.

Beatrice:
Argh! Nested comments are so damned annoying. Especially on a phone. Miri’s blog also doesn’t appear to have a preview function for comments :(
****
Thunk:
Hopefully you will get some down time soon.

I have to say, I like this new ad campaign by UNICEF. “Like us on Facebook and we will vaccinate zero children against polio.” Blunt and to the point about the silliness of a lot of “social media activism”.

I have not triggered in a week. In over a week. I have only had one 9/11 dream. No scout dreams. And my mind being so intent on messing with itself, I am scared that the lack of triggering will only mean a bigger trigger down the road. My mind is so good with fucking itself over.

Or, maybe the length of time between triggerings will continue to widen, and eventually triggering at all will become a rarity.*tentacles crossed*
–rq, what is the cream-colored flower with the dark center? Apart from pretty, that is.
–